Financial News

UTRECHT, Netherlands — Sara Lee has acquired an ultra-premium tea business based in Massachusetts.

The company said it acquired Tea Forté, a company founded in 2003 by former Museum of Modern Art designer Peter Hewitt, for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition, Sara Lee said, strategically fits the company's strategy to spin off its CoffeeTeaCo business. CoffeeTeaCo will retain the current management team of Tea Forté to run the business independently before integrating it into its international coffee and tea operations, Sara Lee noted.

Cookies and crackers are a mature category with slow growth. Private label has been strong in the cookie category, a trend Mintel expected to continue for the next few years. Kraft Foods leads the category with its powerhouse Oreo and Chips Ahoy! brands.

Kraft also leads in the branded cracker category with a 37% market share, according to Packaged Facts, despite poor performance from its Ritz and Wheat Thins lines this year. Consumers remain interested in reduced sodium products.

GREEN BAY, Wis. — Mass merchandise retailers Shopko Stores and Pamida are merging, the two companies said Wednesday.

Sales of household cleaning products have seen a decline over the last four years, according to a recent study by Mintel — a trend the market research company expected will continue until 2015.

Mintel attributed the dip in sales to consumers cleaning their homes on an as-needed basis and taking a more economy-focused approach to the category. Cleaning cloths/wipes, furniture polish and floor cleaners have had the best growth. Sales of green products slowed, but still show promise.

Craft beers — particularly seasonals — have provided much-needed innovation to the beer category, providing the category with double-digit sales increases for the last several years. Craft brews’ sales were up 16.2% for the 52 weeks ended in early October 2011, according to the Brewers Association. While craft brews represent 4.9% of total beer category volume, the segments accounts for 7.6% of retail dollar volume.

EL PASO, Texas — Helen of Troy has become the new owner of the Pur water purification products business, the company announced Tuesday.

The company previously announced its intent to acquire Pur Water Purification Products company — including the worldwide Pur trademark, its current and future product line, assets related to the operations of the Pur business, manufacturing equipment and more than 200 patents — from Procter & Gamble in December.

The drug store channel has had strong sales in the beer category despite lackluster industry performance. Dollar sales for the beer category in drug were up nearly 6% for the year to date ended Oct. 30, 2011, according to SymphonyIRI Group data. Food and convenience store beer sales were up only 0.6% and 2%, respectively.

NEW YORK — Retailers will report weak December front-end sales growth across the drug channel as continued inflation likely was offset by the slow start to the flu season and disappointing overall traffic and volume growth, Credit Suisse research analyst Ed Kelly suggested in a note published Tuesday.

"While drug stores have been fairly successful passing through product cost inflation at the shelf, our Nielsen Trend Tracker shows that volumes have decelerated in recent months given the weak consumer and normal price elasticity," he wrote.