Ahold Delhaize

SCARBOROUGH, Maine -- Hannaford Supermarket and Pharmacy here will hold the grand opening of its new 62,000-square-foot Rochester, N.H. store on Saturday, Jan. 28.

CERRITOS, Calif. -- Retail marketing services firm Mass Connections, based here, is hosting its 10th Annual "Connecting to the Consumer & Shopper" Conference in Long Beach, Calif. Feb. 15-17. The conference is open to the retail industry.

SALISBURY, N.C. -- Regional retailer Food Lion LLC, a unit of the Delhaize Group, yesterday laid out its plans to expand its two experimental banners, Bloom and Bottom Dollar, to new southeast markets. Bloom will be introduced to shoppers in Washington, D.C. area and Upstate South Carolina, while Bottom Dollar will expand to Washington only.

NEW YORK -- Following are several retail newsmakers from National Retail Federation's 95th Annual Convention & EXPO, held here this week:

AMSTERDAM -- Royal Ahold here reported preliminary consolidated net sales, excluding currency impacts and an extra calendar week in 2004, for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2005 of 10.8 billion euros (US $13.0 billion), a 0.6 percent increase. The overall performance of the retail giant's U.S. operations, which also Giant-Carlisle/Tops arena and U.S. Foodservice, was decidedly mixed, however.

Progressive Grocer places bets on which operators will merit headlines in 2006.

The refrigerated dough category looks to the smaller-household, health-and-wellness, and private label segments to reinvent itself.

SALISBURY, N.C. -- Regional chain Food Lion here will give five lucky winners of its Maryland-area "Fresh Makeover" giveaway today at a celebration in Pasadena, Md. The customers will take home a check for $25,000 and gift cards for $100 in groceries a week for 52 weeks.