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DIED. JAMES CANTALUPO, 60, McDonald's chief who steered a dramatic turnaround at the world's largest restaurant chain; of an apparent heart attack; in Orlando, Fla. Cantalupo joined McDonald's in 1974 and helped oversee a large foreign expansion before taking early retirement in 2001. He was coaxed back in early 2003 and set about restoring sales and profit growth by demanding better service and, in response to health concerns, introducing entree salads while eliminating supersize fries and soft drinks...
...years the supermarket industry viewed its 1% net profit margin as a badge of its efficiency. In reality, the opposite was true: the grocers earned so little because they weren't that good at managing the supply chain. Wal-Mart exploited that weakness with devastating effect on the grocers, and it has forced food suppliers to become more efficient too. For starters, the leviathan has changed the way grocery stores deal with their vendors, as everyone seeks to copy its Retail Link system, which provides real-time sales data to manufacturers. Wal-Mart also helped persuade the pack to subscribe...
Blaming Wal-Mart is a common industry response, but it's also misguided. The grocers have contributed enormously to their own problems. Their inefficient supply chain, for instance, provided Wal-Mart with a golden opportunity. And their initial response to the new threat was fairly myopic. Like too many of his fellow grocers, Davis thought getting bigger himself would make things better. Before Wal-Mart, he says, "we tried to limit our distance from our warehouses to 300 miles. Now we're going 500 miles" to reach stores as far as the Gulf Coast. Kroger, Albertson's and Safeway each...
...national chains are undergoing a massive restructuring that will determine which among them survive. "We've made a few mistakes," concedes Safeway CEO Steve Burd, who was the industry darling for years until his cost-cutting skills sucked the life out of recent acquisitions, including Dominick's in Chicago and Genuardi's in Philadelphia. Revenues at the 1,800-store chain edged up 2%, to $35.6 billion last year, as the company logged $170 million in losses. With several big pension funds calling for his head, Burd embarked on a two-week road show last month to convince investors that...
After Wal-Mart launched its Supercenter format in 1991, it took the company three years to reach $1 billion in annual U.S. grocery sales. But a mere decade later, it is topping $100 billion a year, which is almost as much as the sales of the next three biggest chains combined. "To a certain extent, Wal-Mart's strength is more of a reflection of the lack of difference among stores," says Willard Bishop, a supermarket consultant in Barrington, Ill. Conventional grocers are starting to get the message--differentiate or die--which is why some are jazzing...