Food Lion piloting 'sealed-fresh' beef

This week, a reader called the Observer with an interesting question about Salisbury-based Food Lion's plans for its meat counters: Is the company planning to get rid of them?

The questioner had noticed the meat counter being removed at his local Cornelius store. We asked Food Lion spokeswoman Christy Phillips-Brown, who said no, that meat counter is just being switched to a different model "to make it more consistent with cases in our other stores."

Phillips-Brown said the company is running a pilot program at its Roanoke-area stores with new "sealed-fresh" beef products. Vacuum-packed in individual plastic, the cuts of beef arrive ready-to-sell at each store, meaning there's no need to cut meat in-store.

That frees up meat managers to possibly assume other duties, Phillips-Brown said. The pilot program hasn't run long enough to know what customers think or whether sealed-fresh beef will spread, she
said.

Click here for a November story from WSLS in Roanoke, in which Food Lion director of operations Rob Ward discusses the merits of sealed beef. It stays fresher longer, and no spilled blood from any packages in your refrigerator, said Ward.

Ward said the program is in 61 Roanoke-area stores. In the WSLS story, you can watch him and another Food Lion market manager grill a steak.

The packages resemble what you get at Trader Joe's, which doesn't have in-store butchering, but sells vacuum-packed individual cuts of beef.

Food Lion is a subsidiary of Belgian grocery conglomerate Delhaize. The company is attempting to improve its results and increase its market share under new CEO Beth Newlands Campbell, who put it simply in August: "We just have to get better."

Trader Joe's at Rivergate? Nope, sorry

Rivergate Shopping Center in Steele Creek is expanding, and a reader emailed me Wednesday to check out a rumor: That a new Trader Joe's would be a tenant.

Turns out that rumor isn't true, according to John Dosser of Childress Klein Properties, the developer expanding Rivergate. "I can confirm that Trader Joe's is not a tenant we are currently working with," Dosser said via email.

Childress Klein announced the expansion in November. The Shops at Rivergate South, as its known, will be 150,000 square feet, on 22 acres adjacent to Rivergate. Anchor tenants include HomeGoods, Michaels and Ulta Beauty. The expansion is slated to open in late summer.

There are three Trader Joe's stores in Charlotte (map), one each in the city's north, south and near uptown. Where do you think Trader Joe's should build more stores?


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Alexander Scott moving to Myers Park Center

Alexander Scott, the interior store that's been a fixture on East Blvd. for three years, plans to move next month to a new space on Providence Road.

The current store, located in the gated McColl building at 208 East Blvd., will close on Jan. 31, co-owner David Newcombe said. The new location is in the former Paul Simon store on Providence Road, in the Myers Park Center next to the new Mega Harris Teeter. Newcombe expects to open in early February.



"We love the building, but East Blvd. is a tough street to be on," said Newcombe. Many of Alexander Scott's customers come from Myers Park and Eastover. "We're not on their beaten path. We're going to go to their neighborhood so we can be more accessible to them."

The new store will be smaller than the current location, with 25 vendors selling home goods and accessories. That's down from 70 at the East Blvd. store. Newcombe said that the smaller space offered a chance to pare the store's selection.

"I really wanted to streamline it and bring the best of the best," he said. "If it's too big, it becomes very redundant."

Alexander Scott is a multi-merchant store, meaning multiple vendors lease space to sell their goods there. Other multi-merchant stores in Charlotte include Blacklion and Slate.


"Multi-merchant marketplaces are everywhere, so it's paramount we set ourselves apart," said Newcombe.
 

Revolution moving from EpiCentre to East Blvd.

An uptown apparel retailer is moving from its EpiCentre location to a new store on East Boulevard next week, after five years at the mixed-use entertainment complex.

Revolution plans to close its EpiCentre location on Jan. 15. Its new store is located at East Blvd. and Cleveland Street, in a renovated building. The East Blvd. store will carry premium denim and designer clothes for men and women, as well as jewelry, shoes, accessories and gifts.

Here's a picture of the new Revolution shop, from their Facebook page. The building has been extensively redone over the past few months, and is set to open on Thursday.

227 East Boulevard

Revolution is running sales at its uptown store until the location closes.

Uptown's relatively small retail selection has long been a sore point with many (I used to live uptown about four years ago, and I had to drive out of uptown to buy anything besides food). What do you think about the uptown retail scene? Do you think there are enough residents and visitors to support more stores now?

Aeropostale closing at SouthPark

The Aeropostale at SouthPark mall is closing, as the mall prepares to make room in the Macy's wing for a planned H&M store.

The store is holding a 70 percent off sale to clear out its inventory. There's no word yet on whether Aeropostale is opening a replacement store in SouthPark.

Swedish fast-fashion retailer H&M is opening its third Charlotte-area store in SouthPark. The company already has a store open at Northlake Mall and another one opening January 16 at Pineville's Carolina Place.

The SouthPark store will be 20,000 square feet, H&M said. No opening date has been announced.

H&M has been growing, with rising sales, while Aeropostal has struggled. The teen-oriented retailer has reported four straight quarters of losses, and its holiday forecast calls for a larger-than-expected loss this year, according to Reuters.

Two Charlotte-area Edwin Watts golf stores closing

Two of the three local Edwin Watts golf stores are closing, in the wake of the specialty retailer's bankruptcy.

Those stores, on South Boulevard in Charlotte and Lyles Lane in Concord, are holding liquidation sales, with inventory markdowns starting at around 20 percent and increasing over the coming weeks. They're expected to close for good in early February.

The third area store, on Pineville-Matthews road, will remain open going forward, a worker at that location said.

Earlier this month, Edwin Watts and its 91 stores were sold to a golf retailer and a liquidator for almost $41 million. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November, blaming increased competition from other retailers and the lingering effects of the recession on golf.

Publix opening Concord store

Florida-based Publix Super Markets said Wednesday that it plans to open a store in Concord, adding a fourteenth Publix store to the Charlotte region.

No opening date has been set for the Concord store, said a Publix spokeswoman. The new store will be located in the planned Willow Oaks Crossing shopping center, at George Liles Parkway and Weddington Road. 

Publix has signed a lease for the location, and plans for the store to be 49,000 square feet. Concord is in the process of extending Weddington and George Liles to make the area more business- and traffic-

Planned Publix stores

friendly.

As Publix ramps up its Charlotte division, the company has two local stores open, both just over the border in South Carolina. Publix is planning to open six stores next year and five more in 2015, in addition to the Concord store. 

The company has also announced plans to open stores in Asheville, Cary and Winston-Salem as it pushes into North Carolina. Charlotte and the rest of the state are, of course, home turf for Matthews-based Harris Teeter, adding to the competitive pressure on the local retailer. 

That pressure, as well as competition from Walmart and other discounters, is a major reason Harris Teeter decided to sell itself to Cincinnati-based Kroger earlier this year. That deal is expected to close early next year.