Center Store

ST. LOUIS — A cat food brand has partnered with a company that develops music specifically for pets.

The market for sports nutrition looks good. All categories grouped by Drug Store News in this space — nutrition and energy bars, energy shots and ready-to-drink protein shakes — currently are trending up significantly. Taken together, sales of these three categories are up 15.8% to $2.2 billion for the year.


NEW YORK — Glad wants consumers to waste less by making its tall kitchen trash bags more green.

Glad said that its tall kitchen bags are stronger and use less plastic, and will carry the claims on its packaging. The brand's Glad tall kitchen bags and Glad OdorShield Fresh Scents tall kitchen drawstring bags utilize 6.5% less plastic, the company said. What's more, Glad also touts a 65% recycled kitchen bag, made from 65% recycled plastic, as well as compostable bags that are made with approximately 40% vegetable-based materials so they disintegrate at compost facilities.

Drug stores continue to offer more fresh grocery items. “Fresh fruit and vegetables are top grocery categories. There’s high demand for the products, and the size of the market is huge. So it makes sense that the drug channel is going after that business,” said Harry Balzer, chief industry analyst and VP of the NPD Group.

Greg Tradup, category manager of perishable, supplies and foodservice at McLane Co., said that drug stores are seeing a jump in sales of fresh fruits, juices and thaw-and-serve sandwiches.

WAYNE, Pa. — Emerson Group on Wednesday named Shane Brown to the group's Walmart team.

Brown comes to Emerson from Bayer HealthCare where he held a variety of roles in sales and category management for Bayer’s over-the-counter businesses working with the Walmart account. His primary responsibility was working as category captain to Walmart on the cough, cold and allergy category. Brown utilized his knowledge of the cough, cold and allergy category in working with Bayer internal brand teams to develop and launch new items, as well as setting brand strategies.

WOONSOCKET, R.I. — Summer Infant has named David Hemendinger as its new COO.

In his new role, Hemendinger will be responsible for assuring that the company's operational infrastructure in its information systems and supply chain effectively and efficiently supports the company's business and growth initiatives, Summer Infant said. He replaces Summer Infant COO Jeffery Hale.

NEW YORK — FyrFlyz could be the next big kid craze. The new spinning toy on a string from i-Star Entertainment has earned a spot on a number of “Hot Toy” lists, including the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio and Dr. Toy Top Ten Toys lists.


With multicolored LED lights that create unique light patterns when the toy is spun, FyrFlyz puts a new twist on the classic children’s spinning toy. Priced at $8.99 and aimed at kids 8 years and older, the toy is poised to be a holiday hit.


Industry experts say growth in the photo department will come from personalized products. “The photo category of the future is in user-generated content,” said Steve Giordano Jr., president of Lucidiom. “Customers should be able to go into a drug store and purchase personalized invitations, banners and thank you notes for a party.”

Retailers, Giordano said, have to go deep in the category to be competitive. That means offering everything from invitations and sticky notes to photobooks.