RITE AID

NEW YORK — Rite Aid and LifeScan kicked off the Rite Track Diabetes Tour in New York on Tuesday with a special appearance by celebrity chef Sam Talbot.

The tour, which runs through November — to mark American Diabetes Month — and December will visit more than 30 locations across the Northeast in a specially outfitted RV and offer free diabetes testing, resources and materials.

CAMP HILL, Pa. — Rite Aid’s same-store sales increased by 1.9% in July, the retail pharmacy chain said Thursday.

During the four-week period ended July 23, comp sales jumped 3.1% on the front end and 1.4% in the pharmacy, including a 151 basis point reduction resulting from introduction of new generic drugs. Prescription counts decreased by 0.4%. Total sales during the four-week period were about $1.92 billion, a 1.6% increase over July 2010.

AVON, Conn. — Rite Aid chairman Mary Sammons has been appointed to Magellan Health Services’ board of directors, Magellan said.

The addition of Sammons increases the number of members on Magellan’s board to nine. Sammons began at Rite Aid as president and COO in 1999, becoming CEO in 2003 and chairman in 2007. The current president and CEO is John Standley.


When Rite Aid chairman Mary Sammons accepted the Sheldon W. Fantle Lifetime Achievement Award at the National Association of Chain Drug Stores’ Annual Meeting in Scottsdale, Ariz., in May, it was the culmination of a career that had seen Rite Aid emerge from a period of darkness that had lasted more than a decade.


Sammons plans to stay on as chairman of Camp Hill, Pa.-based Rite Aid until the company’s annual meeting in June 2012. But when she does hang up the gloves, she will have a lot to look back on.


CAMP HILL, Pa. — Rite Aid is offering specials on back-to-school items for the upcoming shopping season, the retail pharmacy chain said Monday.

The National Retail Federation predicted that the weak economy will drive many shoppers to seek items on sale, and 1-in-5 shoppers will look for items at the local drug store. Weekly specials will be featured in circulars during the season, and Rite Aid stores situated near college campuses will carry extra items for students living in dorm rooms.

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT’S IMPORTANT — If the rumors that surfaced last week about Walmart eyeing Rite Aid for a possible buyout turn out to be true, it would be one of the biggest stories of the year: Walmart would acquire the country’s third-largest drug store chain and more than double its U.S. store count.

(THE NEWS: Report: Walmart may be eyeing Rite Aid. For the full story, click here)


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.



The 19th century British writer William Hickson may have written, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again,” but he only had half the story. By all means, try again, but don’t do the same thing over and over and expect different results.