Retail & FoodService

There were 4,442 more restaurants in the U.S. in fall 2012 than there were in fall 2011, according to a recent U.S. restaurant census conducted by The NPD Group, a leading global information company. The total number of U.S. restaurants is now 616,008, a .7 percent increase over last year, based on NPD’s Fall 2012 ReCount®, which is a count of commercial restaurant locations in the United States compiled in the spring and fall each year. …

Houston Texans' superstar defensive lineman J.J. Watt, who gobbled up more than his fair share of helpless opposing quarterbacks this past season, will bring another of his prodigious appetites into play now that he has signed on as a spokesman for H-E-B Grocery Co. …

Our piece, "Twenty Lessons Learned From Tesco’s Fresh & Easy Failure," brought many responses. Edna St. Vincent Millay was among the first women to receive the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. She advised that “It is not true that life is one damn thing after another. It's the same damn thing over and over.” Which is pretty much what seems to have happened here. …

The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) Hall of Achievement Award was presented January 19th to Timothy Smucker, Chairman of the Board, The J. M. Smucker Company and Daniel Wegman, Chief Executive Officer, Wegmans Food Markets before more than 400 industry leaders at the GMA Chairman’s Lecture. The Hall of Achievement Award represents the highest honor given by the more than 100 year-old association. …

Supermarket chain Metro Inc. is selling nearly half of its 25-year investment in convenience store operator Alimentation Couche-Tard to three Canadian banks for $479-million. …