News Briefs

The Giant Co. has named Ted Williams director of non-foods, effective July 5. In this role, he will be responsible for areas like health and personal care, seasonal, general merchandise, pet supplies, candy and baby.

A 30-year industry veteran, Williams previously worked at Ahold USA as a category management business consultant and with Giant Food as the director of retail pricing and the director of grocery category management. Since then, he has been fine-tuning his skills in non-foods with retailers like CVS, Pathmark and Rite Aid. Most recently, Williams served as the COO at HLS-Higher Level Solutions, helping founder-led CPG companies develop their brand while launching into e-commerce and physical retail.

At The Giant Co., Williams will report directly to Parag Shah, VP, center store omnichannel merchandising.

With more than 35,000 associates supporting approximately 190 stores, 133 pharmacies, 107 fuel stations, and over 175-plus online pickup hubs and grocery delivery service in hundreds of ZIP codes, The Giant Co., based in Carlisle, Pa., encompasses the following banners: Giant, Martin’s, Giant Heirloom Market, Giant Direct and Martin’s Direct. Parent company Ahold Delhaize USA, a division of Zaandam, Netherlands-based Ahold Delhaize, is No. 10 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. Its other brands are Food Lion, FreshDirect, Giant Food, Hannaford, Stop & Shop, Peapod and Retail Business Services.

As part of its efforts to find and tout locally made offerings, Hy-Vee, Inc. is hosting its next Best of Local Brands Summit from Sept. 7-9. Working with ECRM and RangeMe, Hy-Vee is again providing suppliers a chance to share their stories during 20-minute online interviews and via free profiles that highlight their products and entrepreneurial businesses.

Interested suppliers can submit their products and information on the RangeMe platform. The interviews will be conducted through ECRM’s Connect platform.

The September virtual event follows several previous Hy-Vee Best of Local Brands Summits that have connected shoppers to Midwestern makers and producers. The program has led to the introduction of more than 100 new brands on store shelves across Hy-Vee’s footprint, spanning grocery, produce, deli, general merchandise, frozen, dairy, and health and beauty care categories.

Hy-Vee encourages suppliers with diverse backgrounds, including minority-owned and women-owned businesses, to apply for the quarterly summits. Submissions are being accepted now through July 18 at www.rangeme.com/hyveebestoflocal22q3.

According to Hy-Vee, even if local brands are not chosen to participate in the latest online event, their profiles will still be accessible through RangeMe and may be reviewed by the grocer again in the future.

Hy-Vee started the Best of Local Brands Summit in February 2020 and launched a Pet Products Summit in May, the first category-specific summit. The retailer’s longstanding commitment to sourcing local items also includes the Hy-Vee Homegrown program, through which products grown with 200 miles of a store carry a special Homegrown logo.

Employee-owned Hy-Vee has a team of more than 93,000 employees. The West Des Moines, Iowa-based company is No. 30 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.

Wegmans Food Markets has agreed to pay $400,000 and upgrade its security practices over a data breach that exposed personal information of more than 3 million consumers nationwide, including 830,000 New Yorkers, according to New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The New York Attorney General indicated that Wegmans kept consumers’ personal information in misconfigured cloud storage containers that were open for years, making it easy for hackers or others to potentially access the information. The compromised data included usernames and passwords for Wegmans accounts, as well as customers’ names, email addresses, mailing addresses and additional data derived from drivers’ license numbers.

“Today, Wegmans is paying the price for recklessly handling and exposing millions of consumers’ personal information on the internet," said Attorney General James. "In the 21^st century, there’s no excuse for companies to have poor cybersecurity systems and practices that hurt consumers.”

In April 2021, a security researcher informed Wegmans that a cloud storage container hosted on Microsoft Azure was left unsecured and open to public access, potentially exposing consumers’ sensitive information. Wegmans immediately reviewed its cloud environment and identified the container, which was misconfigured from its creation in January 2018 until April 2021. In May 2021, Wegmans discovered a second cloud storage container that was also misconfigured. The storage container was left publicly accessible since it was set up in November 2018. 

Wegmans began notifying affected consumers last year whose personal information was compromised during the incident.

The grocer is required to pay New York $400,000 in penalties and must adopt new measures to protect consumers’ personal information going forward.

Family-owned Wegmans operates over 100 stores in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland and Massachusetts. The Rochester, N.Y.-based company is No. 34 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. 

Costco Wholesale Corp. has acquired the 45% minority interest that it did not already own in the Costco-Taiwan joint venture from the company’s long-time joint venture partners. The deal is worth $1.05 billion and is expected to add 1% to 1.5% to Costco’s earnings per share.

The retailer currently operates 14 warehouses in Taiwan, as well as an e-commerce site. Globally, Costco operates 833 warehouses, 574 of which are in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

In the U.S., Costco recently benefited from increased membership in its third quarter, ended May 8. The company reported membership fee income of $984 million, up $83 million year-over-year. Net sales for the retailer's third quarter increased 16.3%, to $51.61 billion, from $44.38 billion last year.

Issaquah, Wash.-based Costco is No. 3 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.

Fresh Thyme Market announced some executive changes this week, as 43-year industry veteran Gerald Melville steps down as president. Longtime retail leader Liz Zolcak will succeed the retiring Melville.

Zolcak joined the specialty retailer in 2020 as VP of operations, overseeing the chain’s 71 stores throughout the Midwest. Her grocery leadership experience includes roles as VP of retail operations for The Kroger Co., division president of Ruler Foods and marketing director for Aldi.

"I am thrilled and humbled to take on this exciting new challenge and to be trusted to lead such an incredible team," Zolcak said. "Gerald and I have been able to accomplish significant wins with the team during our time working together, and I'm looking forward to even more successes ahead." 

Echoed Melville: "My tenure at Fresh Thyme Market has been challenging and exciting. As I move on to my next phase, I'm very confident Fresh Thyme Market is poised for continued success as I hand the baton to Liz."

Melville is wrapping up a notable career in food retailing. Before taking the helm at Fresh Thyme in 2019, he worked as a regional VP at Michigan-headquartered Meijer for nearly a decade. He also held leadership positions with Albertsons Cos. and Supervalu, where he was responsible for functions including store operations, customer service, labor and food safety, among others.

Fresh Thyme continues to expand its presence across its footprint. In late 2021, the grocer opened a new concept store at City Foundry in St. Louis, featuring local, natural, organic food, a full-service café and a self-checkout model.

Downers Grove, Ill.-based Fresh Thyme Market is No. 91 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.

Giant Food is taking a more direct route in its farm-to-table offerings, reintroducing local produce boxes in time for summer harvests. The boxes are filled with variety of locally sourced, in-season produce and are available through the Giant Delivers service.

Shoppers don’t need to subscribe to order the boxes, which retail for $20 and will be available through the end of growing season in September. Several local farms are providing this year’s crop of fresh produce, including Baugher's Orchards and Houser Produce Farm of Maryland, Papen Farms and Fifer Orchards of Delaware, and Kirby Farms of Virginia.

This is the second year that Giant Food has offered the boxes, which align with the retailer’s goals to enhance food traceability and transparency and make locally sourced, healthy foods accessible to customers.

"Giant's first summer of offering the local produce boxes was a huge success and our customers loved knowing that their produce was sourced locally by the best farms around our area," said Adenike Olaleye, senior manager of e-commerce merchandising. "We're working with more farmers this year to offer an even wider range of produce options that will keep our customers pleased week after week."

Customers can also save $5 on Giant Delivers Local Meal Bundles, curated recipes that allow shoppers to buy all ingredients in one click. In addition, from July 8 to Sept. 8, Giant shoppers can earn 400 Flexible Rewards points when they spend at least $20 on participating local products, which can be used towards groceries or fuel.

Based in Landover, Md., Giant Food operates 164 supermarkets in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia, with approximately 20,000 associates. Parent company Ahold Delhaize USA is No. 10 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.