Costco Wholesale Corp.

NEW YORK -- Wal-Mart was the top traditional retailer of any kind on Fortune Magazine's annual list of Most Admired Companies, but a number of other retail food merchants made the grade on various specialty sub-lists as the business magazine recognized hundreds of firms for being named companies worth admiring by businesspeople.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Wegmans Food Markets Inc. will be opening three supermarkets in the greater Philadelphia area, according to a local published report. The Northeast upscale retailer's Mount Laurel, N.J. store opened yesterday, while its Cherry Hill, N.J. location will debut in June and a Warrington, Pa. market will bow in December. Wegmans' earlier Philadelphia-area store, in Downington, Pa., opened in 2003.

ISSAQUAH, Wash. -- Fresh food is still driving double-digit growth for Costco Wholesale Corp., which saw its fiscal Q2 results still beat Wall Street expectations even though profits slipped 3 percent during the period.

ISSAQUAH, Wash. -- Increased demand for gasoline and food drove total comp sales at warehouse club Costco Wholesale Corp. up to 9 percent for the four weeks ended January 29. During this period, Costco saw net sales of $4.12 billion, an increase of 12 percent from $3.67 billion for the same four-week period last year.

MESA, Ariz. -- A Costco store here was evacuated late Monday after a refrigeration unit leak created a Freon cloud. Up to 500 people were evacuated from the store.

ISSAQUAH, Wash -- All fresh food categories are doing well at warehouse club retailer Costco Wholesale Corp., with produce leading the way with a mid-teen increase in comparable sales in the month of December, according to spokesperson Bob Nelson, who spoke during an investor conference call yesterday.

Progressive Grocer places bets on which operators will merit headlines in 2006.

Some are painfully obvious, others will blindside you. But nontraditional competition means much more than Wal-Mart, and each grocer must decide which suspects most bear watching.