In this Issue

Sales in the digestives aisle going forward look positive, especially as an aging population begins paying closer attention to healthy diets, including the right amount of dietary fiber to keep things “regular” and supplementation with probiotics for overall digestive health. 



Consumers eating more meals at home and innovation from manufacturers have led to a spike in sales of frozen convenience foods. A number of frozen segments showed double-digit increases in the 52-week period ended May 15. Dollar sales of frozen breakfast foods were up nearly 9% across food, drug and mass (excluding Walmart), according to SymphonyIRI 
Group data.


In an exclusive video store tour, Walgreens president of daily living products and solutions Joe Magnacca walks Drug Store News editor Rob Eder and the DSN.TV cameras through the new Duane Reade flagship store at 40 Wall St. The first-ever co-branded Duane Reade-Walgreens store opened to the public July 6.



Since its nationwide launch in April 2010, Rite Aid’s wellness+ loyalty card program rapidly has proven itself to be a phenomenal boost to the chain’s business as the first-ever loyalty program designed to enhance customers’ savings and well-being together.



As Seen On TV products have gained valuable shelf space at drug chains, becoming a formidable department instead of just an item-driven business.


Its evolution is thanks to industry leaders Telebrands, Ontel, IdeaVillage (each individually owned by one of three Khubani brothers) and Allstar Products Group. Together they account for a significant portion of sales for the category whose customers are early adopters and seek new, innovative and value-driven products.



It’s like stepping into a time machine and jumping ahead a decade or more.
 Housed in a historic 1930s property that once was the tallest building in the world, Duane Reade’s newest flagship store at 40 Wall St. in New York — the first co-branded Duane Reade/Walgreens store — offers a glimpse of how retailers will use technology and develop new in-store services to create a much more interactive shopping experience.



With its latest string of initiatives designed to bring it out of a slump that lasted more than a decade, Rite Aid is aiming for “wellness” to do for it what the lower-case “i” did for Apple.


First, there was the wellness+ loyalty card program. Then, there was the wellness store format, with its team of Wellness Ambassadors. “This new format is all about empowering our customers in their pursuit of wellness,” president and CEO John Standley said in the company’s first quarter 2012 earnings call on June 23.



With more than half of women in the United States between the ages of 25 and 58 years battling some form of acne and the average age for acne patients on the rise, according to the American Academy of Dermatology, it is no surprise that sales of acne treatments have experienced an uptick at food, drug and mass. The sales trend is likely to continue as manufacturers continue to develop formulas to battle adult acne.