OHIO BUSINESS
Meijer to add 9,000 jobs
Midwest retailer Meijer Inc. plans to hire more than 9,000 new employees in five states in the coming months. The Grand Rapids, Mich.-based company says the hiring is because of growth and preparation for fall and holiday seasons. Meijer says it wants to hire 4,400 in Michigan, 1,800 in Indiana, 1,600 in Ohio, 900 in Illinois and 500 in Kentucky. Meijer has opened five new stores this year, including one in Detroit, and plans one more this year. It has nine scheduled to open in 2014. The retailer says most of the new positions will be part-time.
FAST FOOD
Sales rise for McDonald’s
McDonald’s said a key sales figure edged up modestly in July, as revenue in the U.S. helped offset declines in Europe. Global sales rose 0.7 percent at restaurants open at least 13 months. That included a 1.6 percent increase in the U.S., where it said breakfast and staples such as the Big Mac helped lift results. The figure fell 1.9 percent in both Europe and the region encompassing Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
California lettuce prices up
Heavy rains and persistent heat in the eastern United States have devastated that region’s lettuce crop. So buyers are turning to America’s salad bowl: California.
Growers in the Golden State are seeing wholesale prices for their leafy greens and other vegetables soar because of demand on the other side of the nation. Iceberg lettuce is leading the charge, with shipments going for double the price of a year ago at about $22 for a standard carton of 24 heads, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Prices for broccoli, cauliflower and spinach are also on the rise.
Slow demand hurts Nestle
Nestle SA Chief Financial Officer Wan Ling Martello said reaching sales growth needed in the rest of the year to meet the company’s forecast will be a “stretch” as the world’s biggest food company wrestles with sluggish demand in Europe. Nestle said it expects to reach internally generated sales growth of about 5 percent this year, the low end of its long-term target. Attaining 6 percent growth in the second half in order to make the goal for 2013 “won’t be easy,” Martello said on a conference call. Nestle, with Stouffer brand operations based in Solon, reported the slowest first-half revenue growth in four years.
Corn crop expected to be big
U.S. farmers are poised to reap their biggest-ever corn crop, expanding global stockpiles to the most in 13 years and spurring hedge funds and other speculators to make record bets that prices will keep slumping. The harvest in the largest grower will jump 30 percent to 14.036 billion bushels, the average of 27 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg shows. That’s 53 million bushels more than they expected a month ago and 86 million above the government’s July forecast. Record crops from the U.S. to Brazil to Ukraine will expand world inventories by 23 percent to 152.36 million tons in a year, according to the average of 12 predictions. Surging supply spurred analysts from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to cut their price forecasts this week and R.J. O’Brien & Associates in Chicago, the U.S. grain-trading hub, says futures may drop as much as 24 percent to $3.50 a bushel this year. Speculators turned bearish a month ago for the first time since 2010 as crops recover from last season’s drought and farmers planted the most acres since 1936.
REAL ESTATE
Interest rate goes up slightly
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said the average on the 30-year loan edged up to 4.40 percent from 4.39 percent last week. The rate is a full percentage point higher than in early May, when rates neared record lows. But rates remain low by historical standards. The average on the 15-year fixed loan was unchanged at 3.43 percent.
Compiled from staff and wire reports