Top Retailers

WOONSOCKET, RI and WASHINGTON, D.C. — CVS Caremark and the United Food & Commercial Workers have announced that they have signed a cooperation agreement giving CVS/pharmacy employees at approximately 500 stores in the metropolitan Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego areas the opportunity to vote on whether or not they want to be represented by the union.  

CHICAGO — United Airlines on Friday announced the opening of the airline’s new employee health clinic at O’Hare International Airport. The clinic, managed by Walgreens, will serve a broad scope of employees’ health needs, such as urgent care for routine illness, travel and other immunizations including flu shots, prepackaged medications, job-related physical training and pre-employment physicals, at no cost to employees. 

Walgreens and Televisa Consumer Products announced an expansion of their distribution across Walgreens with the inclination to share additional insights into the Hispanic community. Televisa's product portfolio spans from beauty items in haircare and skincare to OTC solutions in the cough/cold and pain relief categories. 

HOUSTON — Walgreens and Televisa Consumer Products on Friday announced an initiative to engage Hispanic customers and gain additional insight into the Hispanic community through the introduction of TCP's health and wellness products.

NEW YORK — Costco has entered the pharmacy benefit management business, according to published reports.

In an article in the January 2013 issue of Costco Connection magazine, the club warehouse retailer is promoting the new PBM, Costco Health Solutions, to small business owners. Pharmaceutical industry consultant Adam Fein noted on his blog, Drug Channels, that Costco was seeking to emulate the tactics already used by CVS Caremark, Walgreens and Walmart to drive prescription growth.

AMSTERDAM — Ahold reported sales of $10.4 billion for fourth quarter 2012 and $43.6 billion for the entire fiscal year, the company said in an earnings report.

That marked a 7.5% sales increase compared with fourth quarter 2011 and an 8.5% increase compared with fiscal year 2011, respectively.

PALO ALTO, Calif. — HP this week announced that customers can now print directly from their smartphone or tablet to more than 8,000 Walgreens stores through the HP Public Print Locations network.

By downloading the free HP ePrint Service iPhone app, users can order prints of their photos and pick those photos up from a local Walgreens in as little as an hour.

CARLISLE, Pa. — Ahold banner Giant Food Stores is opening a cheese and specialty food store in central Pennsylvania, the supermarket chain said.

Giant — also known as Giant-Carlisle to distinguish it from fellow Ahold chain Giant Foods of Landover, Md. — said it had a deal with Philadelphia-based Di Bruno Bros. to open the store inside the Giant Super Food Store in Camp Hill, Pa. The new store-within-a-store will open on Jan. 24.