SN Top 10: Stop & Shop, Walmart, UNFI top the week’s headlines

In this week’s recap of the Top 10 most popular Supermarket News articles, the top story was Unknown number of Stop & Shop stores to shutter. Ahold Delhaize USA will close an unspecified number of Stop & Shop stores, the company announced in a recent investor strategy day. Ahold Delhaize USA CEO JJ Fleeman said an evaluation of Stop & Shop’s overall portfolio had been completed and that underperforming stores will be shut down to create a healthy store base for the long term.

More top stories:

• Here’s why C&S is strong divestiture buyer
• Walmart to lay off 568 workers in California
• UNFI comes up big with extension of Whole Foods agreement
• 5 things: Can Whole Foods hang on to the upmarket shopper?

In other news, Walmart created a big splash a couple of weeks ago by introducing Bettergoods, a private label better-for-you line which the retailer deemed its largest launch in two decades. So why does the nation’s top grocer need to expand beyond its current private label offering, Great Value? Some in the industry say they believe it is a way for Walmart to better compete against Trader Joe’s and Kroger.

Other top stories:

• Target announces price cuts on thousands of items
• Korean grocery/restaurant Jagalchi coming to San Francisco Bay Area
• Stew Leonard’s opens new Clifton, New Jersey store
• Sprouts board authorizes $600M stock buyback