In this week’s recap of the Top 10 most popular Supermarket News articles, Court halts Albertsons’ $4B dividend payment under Kroger merger deal ranked as the week’s most-read story. A King County Superior Court commissioner granted a motion by Washington AG Bob Ferguson (D.) for a national temporary restraining order to block the Albertsons $4 billion dividend payment. As part of the Kroger-Albertsons merger transaction, Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons was slated to pay its shareholders a special cash dividend of $6.85 per share, totaling about $4 billion, on Nov. 7.
Among other top stories:
- Woodman’s Markets eyes bigger retail media revenue stream
- KeHE gets bigger in convenience store channel
- Save Mart begins grocery delivery with Amazon
- SpartanNash to consolidate supermarket banners
In other news, Publix Super Markets kept up its strong sales growth pace in the fiscal 2022 third quarter but again saw instability in the stock market impact its bottom line.
For the quarter ended Sept. 24, net sales surged 9.2% to $13 billion from $11.9 billion in the 2021 third quarter, when sales climbed 7.8%, Publix reported Tuesday. The Lakeland, Fla.-based supermarket chain also saw sequential growth in Q3, as net sales edged up 0.8% from $12.9 billion in the 2022 second quarter.
Other stories:
- Aldi, Lidl serve up Thanksgiving price breaks
- Two Attorneys General suing Kroger, Albertsons to halt $4B shareholder handout
- Survey: Walmart edges out Amazon as grocery destination
- Kroger-Albertsons merger: Looking at the numbers
