The days of once a week shopping trips for the family groceries have morphed into something more complex according to analysts with Willard Bishop, a marketing and research firm for retailers and suppliers.

The theme for grocers today is “ready, set, change,” as the Millennial generation, armed with smartphones and limited budgets continue to disrupt the status quo in traditional grocery that has served the past two generations.

Willard Bishop reports that the overall traditional grocery segment raked in $522.8 billion in sales last year, an increase of about 1% in total revenue with a slight dip in market share to 46%.

Traditional supermarkets like Kroger and Publix saw their sales slide 0.4% in 2013, with a cumulative revenue of $444.2 billion and a 39.1% market share. This format experienced the largest dip in market share as more consumers – 39% of the food spending market – spread their spending among Dollar Stores, supercenters and e-commerce, according to the study. Convenience stores and other quick stop stores accounted for 15% of food spending in 2013, unchanged from 2009 and down from 16% in 2006.

A bright spot in the grocery segment are the fresh formats which as a group saw a 10.4% growth in sales to $14 billion last year. The study notes that this format added 1,000 new stores last year with Sprouts, Whole Foods, The Fresh Market each posting double-digit sales growth from the prior year.

Limited assortment stores such as Aldi continued to grow at a steady pace of 4.1% last year with sales of $31.1 billion. Willard Bishop said Aldi is the leader in this category, with plans to add 650 new stores in the U.S. over the next five years.

Supercenter sales grew at 4% last year to reach $200.3 billion, and the store count rose 3.2% to more than 3,800 stores. Willard Bishop notes that Wal-Mart, Target and Kmart all had declining same store sales in 2013.

Craig Rosenblum, partner at Willard Bishop, said Wal-Mart’s move to expand its smaller formats will continue to put pressure on traditional supermarkets. He said food is everywhere today, with even Ace Hardware is selling drinks and snacks.

DIGITAL IS HERE
The traditional shopping experience is evolving partly because four out of five consumers are carrying a smartphone. Jim Hertel, managing partner with Willard Bishop, said e-commerce is not optional for grocery retailers, it’s now essential.

“It will have to become part of all grocers’ strategy going forward,” he said. “As store format change is daunting, it’s essential for retailers to connect with Millennials for future growth opportunities.”

Hertel said mobile is the Millennial’s best friend, and retailers that can figure out home delivery and integrate it into their strategy will be the biggest winners.

Capturing the attention of world “gone mobile” is no easy task. Hertel said 70% of all mobile searches result in action in less than an hour. He said the average person responds to email in 90 minutes, but it takes them just 90 seconds to answer a text. This “want-it-now” society is forcing commerce to at warp speed, he added.

HUGE POTENTIAL
Hertel said e-commerce now accounts for one nickel out of every $1 spent, which demonstrates a huge potential going forward.

Willard Bishop reports the race for the subscription dollar is on among retailers such as Amazon with Prime Pantry, and Sam’s Club’s with My Subscription. Target and Wal-Mart also are testing subscription ideas.

Rosenblum said site-to-store programs which allow shoppers to order groceries online and retrieve the picked order curbside or at a depot are also gaining momentum. But he adds that the consumer has yet to cast a vote on these services because they are not mainstream. 

He suggests that retailers with underperforming stores take a look at possibly turning them into fulfillment centers for online orders, especially if they are open 24 hours a day and already staffed and stocked.

PRICE TRANSPARENCY
Hertel said price is critically important for everyone whether they are the high-end shopper at Whole Foods or the budget conscious Aldi, Wal-Mart and Dollar Store consumer. He predicts that those two diverse ends will perhaps intersect with Wal-Mart’s new Wild Oats Organic line that is bringing premium prices downward.

“Price comparisons are easier than ever and research indicates 59% of shoppers use their phones to check prices when they are in the store. Some 38% have stopped an in-store purchase because they found it cheaper via price checking with their mobile phone,” Hertel said.

Willard Bishop reports that Kroger abandoned its double coupons in an effort to lower prices across the store and better compete with Wal-Mart and other low cost retailers.

Hertel said Wal-Mart’s new Savings Catcher will bring even more transparency in pricing among local competitors. He said it’s important for grocers to win consumer trust with consistent pricing, because they will know when prices are too high and will likely be offended.

America's Car-Mart announced the opening of its 135th dealership in Hixson, Tenn. It’s the company’ sixth dealership in Tennessee and the first store opening for fiscal year 2015. 

“We intend to add new dealerships selectively in what we consider to be good, solid communities with a targeted number of eight dealership openings for fiscal 2015, subject to favorable operating performance,” CEO Hank Henderson noted in the release.

Car-Mart recently said it was slowing its expansion after reporting fewer than expected sales in fiscal 2014 because of heightened competition in the subprime auto sector.

Wal-Mart Stores recently announced plans to add a third e-commerce fulfillment center in Plainfield, Ind., which will ensure the retailer can easily provide millions of American’s with two-day delivery service on their online orders.

The online fulfillment center will be similar to facilities near Fort Worth, Texas and Bethlahem, Penn., which opened in recent months.

“By combining large-scale online fulfillment centers with Walmart’s distribution centers, world-class transportation network and 4,200 stores, we have the ability to get incredibly close to our customers to deliver orders faster and at a lower cost,” said Brent Beabout, senior vice president of supply chain and logistics for Walmart Global eCommerce. “This center alone will allow cost-effective delivery to more than 160 million people in just one to two days.”  

Finding ways to compete with Amazon Prime’s two-day offer has retailers large and small investing and leverage their own infrastructure.

Walmart.com now boasts more than 7 million items for sale online, and being able to get that product to consumers quickly is an important part of the e-commerce equation.

The new facility in Plainfield will be the largest of three at 1.2 million square feet and employ about 300 workers when the project is finished in early 2016.

ArcBest's announcement of a new corporate headquarters at Chaffee Crossing, bringing with it nearly 1,000 jobs to Fort Smith, is just the latest big news to come out of what was once an aging U.S. Army Base.

Since the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority was formed in 1997 to redevelop 7,000 acres of land returned to local governments by the military, the area has transformed from thousands of acres of empty fields, forests and unoccupied buildings into an economic bright spot in an otherwise rocky local economy.

Following the ArcBest announcement, FCRA Executive Director Ivy Owen said the authority was down to about 3,000 acres left for development, "just less than half."

Of that, he said about 25% of the undeveloped land, located in Barling and Fort Smith, was intended for residential development, while roughly 40% to 50% was targeted for commercial and retail development. The remaining land, he said, was intended for industrial development.

Just in the last year, Chaffee has seen a mix of all of those developments, with the announcement of a new 70 store shopping center along Arkansas Highways 22 and 59, the creation of the Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine and the construction of several large housing developments. An expansion of Umarex was also completed within the last year.

The area is also home to modern manufacturing facilities operated by Graphic Packaging and Mars Petcare. Unfortunately, Chaffee Crossing is also home to a modern manufacturing and assembly building owned by Mitsubishi that was never utilized for its purpose of wind turbine production. The more than 400 jobs planned with the Mitsubishi plant faded when economics changed within the wind energy industry.

DIFFERENT DEVELOPMENT PHASE
Owen said FCRA is now transitioning into a different phase of development.

"I think there's going to be smaller scale developments just because, and particularly here at Chaffee Crossing, because of the configuration of our property now. We've sold a lot of large tracts and because of that, we now have a lot of smaller, specialized pieces of property."

He said the land available is suited for more high-end retail and specialized industrial sites like research and development labs or small-scale assembly plants "that didn't have to accommodate 1,000 employees."

As more land is sold and development continues, so does the need for upgraded roads and utilities. Owen said water and other utilities have now been installed for practically the entire 7,000 area and road projects have been following.

One road project underway is the H Street extension in Barling, which will lead to additional residential development by developer Steve Beam. The new shopping center will be south of the H Street extension, though Owen did not say whether any road projects are planned around the development.

Where Zero Street and Wells Lake Road meets near the site of the medical college and a proposed third Fort Smith high school, Owen has said repeatedly that a re-working of the intersection and relocation of Wells Lake Road would need to happen, as well as widening of Frontier Road. The project will take cooperation between the FCRA and the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, though it still remains to be seen what will happen until the Fort Smith School Board holds an election in 2015 on whether to approve a millage increase that would fund the new high school.

THE INTERSTATE IMPACT
The completion of McClure Road will no doubt help traffic flow near the ArcBest headquarters and likely spur further development. At the opening of McClure Road in November 2013, Owen said construction of the last mile of McClure to Wells Lake could take place following a large land purchase along the route. So far, no plans have yet been announced for an extension of McClure to Wells Lake Road.

As for other development, Owen said the public should see a mix of commercial properties the Chaffee Crossing area now lacks, including pharmacies, dry cleaners and convenience stores. He said the opening in October of a 6-mile stretch of what will eventually be part of Interstate 49 will have a positive impact on development.

"We've sold property in the last year and a half for (those types of businesses) and I think once that interstate opens and these two things break ground, as you say (the medical college and ArcBest), then those things will start popping out of the ground."

But bringing infrastructure like I-49 or McClure Road into the area to spur development does not come cheap. To complete the small section of McClure that opened last year, the city and FCRA split the $1 million cost. The I-49 stretch's final cost is expected to ring in at more than $95 million.

DEVELOPMENT DEBATE
It is something often mentioned by advocates of downtown Fort Smith, who have made allegations that development at Chaffee is hurting the urban core of the city and any chance at development in the more than 100-year-old section of town.

As late as Tuesday (June 17), Central Business Improvement District Chairman Richard Griffin — himself the owner and developer of several downtown projects — during a meeting about the closure of A Street and the city's concerns about access to the river, commented that the city makes deals with developers and businesses looking to go in at Chaffee all the time and yet, he contends, no such deals happen for downtown development.

"We've had those cooperative efforts out east of town when things have gone in at Chaffee Crossing. 'We'll do this if the city will do such, Chaffee Crossing trust will do such.' It's not unusual."

Owen said he is a supporter of downtown and asserts that development at Chaffee has not been at the expense of downtown.

"If I were a property owner downtown trying to get my property developed, I would probably feel the same way. Not so much it's a detriment, but maybe Chaffee has an upper hand in attraction of these businesses. I've been trying to neutralize that feeling for a long time now because we're not competing with downtown or the older parts of town. Businesses come here because they want to be here. We have not recruited, as far as I know … to my knowledge, we have not recruited any business away from downtown Fort Smith that would have otherwise located down there."

He said the growth was going to happen somewhere and if the land at Chaffee had not been available for development, businesses would have found someplace else to locate.

Whatever cost there is to bringing businesses to Chaffee, Owen said it is offset by an improved tax base and the creation of jobs.

As for how much longer the public can expect the redevelopment authority to be in existence, Owen said it would likely take another eight to 10 years before enough of the property is marketed, sold and developed for the FCRA to wind down operations.

"We will fade into the sunset. Probably what will happen is that the existing employees by that time, they'll have enough pre-warning that that is going to happen that they can secure other jobs or the businesses out here may be able to hire some of those people. Or the city and the county might be able to hire some of those. But by that time, as we dwindle down in terms of assets, so will our staff. We won't need as much staff at the end of the 12 years as we do now."

How close is too close for Wal-Mart to put a Neighborhood Market to its cash cow supercenters? The retail giant said Thursday (June 19) that one to two miles outside a supercenter is the minimal distance guideline for placing Neighborhood Markets.

Jeff Davis, chief financial officer for Wal-Mart, was asked that question during a global consumer conference held in Nantucket, Mass., and sponsored by Jeffries, a global investment banking firm.

He said Wal-Mart has noticed when it locates a smaller format store in communities where it has strong brand recognition from a supercenter, it is other retailers that lose market share.

“We don’t really see supercenter’s losing share,” Davis said.

Walmart U.S. CEO Bill Simon has said the smaller formats are a way for the retailer to capture sales they are losing to dollar-store formats and other convenience competitors for the fill-in trip — a market valued at $415 billion a year. Wal-Mart said it has just 10% of that fill-in share, but aims to grow the share this year with an accelerated ramp-up of smaller format stores.

Northwest Arkansas is an area where Wal-Mart is building out its store infrastructure with 12 projects announced or in progress in Benton and Washington counties. Centerton, a small bedroom community five miles from Bentonville, recently hosted a grand opening for a Neighborhood Market, and will welcome a supercenter next summer.

Springdale, a town of 70,000, has been comparatively underserved by Walmart with just one supercenter and one Neighborhood Market. But the retailer is about to open a new supercenter this fall. The outlying towns of Farmington and Pea Ridge are each also welcoming a Neighborhood Market in the coming months.

Wal-Mart is also investing in at least two area downtown regions with Neighborhood Markets planned for Rogers and Bentonville next year.

The rural town of Decatur will get a Walmart Express format early next year. The town is  located between Gravette and Gentry, both of which already have these small formats.

Bentonville, Wal-Mart ground zero, is home to five projects announced, completed or with construction in progress.
• Supercenter on the Bella Vista / Bentonville line
• Neighborhood Market in SW Bentonville
• Neighborhood Market downtown Bentonville
• Walmart to Go, convenience store
• Walmart online grocery drive up depot

Simon recently said the 200 new small formats going up this year might not be enough to move the needle for a company with nearly a half trillion dollars in annual revenue. But, he added that 2,000 of these small stores might.

Simon said going forward he expects to see more small stores built than supercenters as the retailer works to fill-in markets where it has already has staked a claim. He said the Neighborhood Market comparable sales are on par with top grocers like Kroger and performing well with little to no realized cannibalization at nearby supercenters. 

“Think of it this way, a Walmart Express with site-to-store, ship-to-store, full grocery, gas and pharmacy can drive the same sales as three to five Dollar Stores. He said the hybrid Neighborhood Market can drive the sales of 10 Dollar Stores, and both models make better use of capital given their reduced building costs," Simon said in October during an investor conference.

A federal transportation safety report has found Wal-Mart driver Kevin Roper was traveling 20 miles over the speed limit at 65 miles per hour when his semi-tractor trailer collided with a luxury van on the New Jersey Turnpike on June 7.

The fatality accident took the life of comedian James McNair and injured actor and comedian Tracy Morgan and three other people.

The preliminary accident report filed by the National Transportation Safety Board today (June 19)  found Roper traveling at 65 miles an hour for about a minute prior to crashing with the van which was flipped over upon impact.

The report also said Roper was within the allowable driving time of 14 hours on the road at 13.5 hours. Investigators claim that Roper swerved to avoid a crash on the turnpike and in so doing his rig slammed into the back of Morgan’s limo van.

The report states that speed limit signs reducing the speed from 55 mph to 45 mph were posted about a half-mile before the crash. The speed limit had been reduced because of construction.

In addition, the NTSB report said investigators are compiling and analyzing information to determine the activities of Roper and the amount of rest he received in the hours and days preceding the crash.

Roper pleaded not guilty to death by auto and assault by auto charges. He is on administrative leave from Wal-Mart. 

Wal-Mart said its trucks are equipped with devices that limit the vehicles' speed to 65 mph. Drivers are required to follow the posted speed limit under Wal-Mart policy, according to corporate spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan

"Of course we expect our drivers to comply with the laws, whether it's a speed limit, or (something else)," Buchanan told the media.

Wal-Mart declined further comment on the report, citing the pending investigation.

It’s just after 5 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon (June 18) and the Schulertown Food Truck Court on Dickson Street in downtown Fayetteville is already buzzing with eager patrons ready to sample cuisine from one of the shiny new food-trucks lining the lot.

At the far corner of the courtyard, which is nestled between Jose's and The Rogers Rec-Room, Bryan Brandon Jr. is hard at work prepping his truck – Wicked Wood Fired Pizza – for another long evening in the kitchen.

Like most of the trucks on the lot, ''Wicked'' will stay open until 3 a.m., making the bulk of the day’s money in the last two hours. The long nights are just the cap to a very long day which begins early as Brandon prepares dough and searches for fresh ingredients to spice up his ever changing menu.

"We prep all of our dough at Ozark Natural Bread, which is owned by my parents," said Brandon. "I try to use as many local ingredients as I can. I recently did a farmers market pizza that was a big hit."

Brandon cut his teeth in the kitchen, working at Ozark Natural Bread with his parents for nearly 20 years. He has a bachelor's degree in baking and heads up the sales and marketing for Ozark Natural Bread. 

Like all the proprietors parked in the Dickson Street food court, Brandon leases his space from the lot’s owner — restaurateur Zac Wooden, who also owns 21st Amendment and Los Bobos Tacqueria. Wooden requires a one-year lease from the tenants who park in his new food court.

COST OF OPERATION
The National Restaurant Association estimates the average food truck investment ranges from $55,000 to $75,000, which is a fraction of the $250,000 to $500,000 or to open a restaurant. Other benefits cited by the association with food trucks are the flexibility the mobile units have in testing new menu concepts and recipes.

Brandon said he spent more than $40,000 on his food-truck venture. Most of the money went toward the truck and its custom wood-fire oven. It is the only cooking appliance on the truck, but the oven more than pulls its weigh. The 3-convection heating system use white oak and hickory logs and can churn out a hand pressed pizza in 3 minutes. 

"Our craziest times are definitely right after the bars close," said Brandon. "The last hour is all hands on deck."

While the inside of the truck is roughly one quarter the size of a standard kitchen, Brandon uses a three-man crew to handle the late-night rush. The 11-inch custom pizzas are the fastest ticket times in the lot, which is packed with top-notch munchies like Mama Dean's and Green House Grill.

"I think we all had our own hurdles to climb in terms of seeing this courtyard come to life," said Brandon. "It was a ton of paper work and legal stuff. ... I am just glad to get that aspect out of the way. There is a lot of room for growth in this industry. ... Right now things are going great."

IBISWorld estimates the fragmented food truck segment will do about $1 billion in annual revenue, growing at about 8.4% over the past three years. The research estimates there are roughly 31,000 food trucks operating in the U.S. and it’s one of the fastest growing food segments in terms of traffic and sales since 2008.

A report by Intuit Inc. and Emergent Research in late 2012  forecast that the roving restaurant sector is on track to be a $2.7 billion national industry by 2017.

Celebrities and large corporations are also riding the food truck wave. Taco Bell, Red Robin, Nabisco and Rachel Ray have their own food trucks.

LAW CHANGES
Earlier this year, the Fayetteville City Council passed new regulations designed to facilitate roving food trucks and businesses that operate inside mobile vendor courts.

One of the new laws allows for the creation of mobile vendor courtyards on private land if the owner is granted a conditional use permit by the city. Vendors who park in the courtyard are not required to get a conditional use permit, but they must provide the city with a site plan, copies of the necessary health permits and regular inspections.

The new law also addressed roving food trucks that park in public areas. The city requires food truck owners to pay an annual $100 mobile vendor fee and cover any fees charged for public parking spaces used.

The city said public parking access for roving food vendors will be given on a lottery basis. A drawing will be held each year to determine which vendors are allowed to set up shop in public parking spaces or inside city parks. One-third of all vendors who apply each year will be awarded a permit through the lottery, with a minimum of three permits granted each year.

The initial lottery will take place before November, according to city officials.

The accounting battle grows larger between retail suppliers and the big retail companies as each side becomes more aggressive to collect or retain the billions of dollars that float in the realm of product discounts, chargebacks, post-payment deductions and other small-print contract details.

In a nutshell, the numerous financial arrangements between retail suppliers – ranging from the largest consumer packaged goods companies to a small 2-3 person shop – and retailers include payment and reimbursement exceptions that may result from problems with back orders, partial orders, labeling/packaging mistakes, product substitutions and issues with timing on special pricing discounts.

The City Wire first began to report on the issue in January 2013, when some suppliers began to complain about a rising number of monthly audit claims against their contracts with Wal-Mart Stores and other retailers. In January 2014, The City Wire noted that such audits may increase with retailers seeking relief following a soft holiday sales season that left them with excess inventory.

THE BIG BUSINESS OF ‘LEAKAGE’
Some estimates suggest as much as 0.01% “leakage” – disputed payment, reimbursements, etc. – for every $1 billion in transactions between a retailer and its supplier community. Considering the amount of total retail sales to consumers, this is a huge market for auditors, audit software companies and others who may work with one or both sides in the accounting conflicts. Just for Wal-Mart, the leakage could total as much as $5 billion.

According to the U.S. Census, there were $4.344 trillion in U.S. retail sales (excluding food service sales) during 2012 (latest year Census data is available), with general merchandise stores accounting for $649.754 billion of that total. End of year inventories held in 2012 by general merchandise stores totaled $75.147 billion, according to Census estimates.

Randy Hargrove, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Stores, said the company has a supplier outreach program that includes efforts to reduce audit claims. He said the company has reduced the number of claims in recent years, but did not know if the dollar value of claims also has fallen.

“We work with all of our merchants and suppliers to ensure that our billing is correct,” Hargrove said.

Boyd Evert and Harry Arthur, with Bentonville-based Harvest Revenue Group, and other sources said recently that audit intensity continues to grow and is primarily driven by third-party audit companies that don’t make money unless they find recoverable money for the big retailers.

“It’s no longer about the spirit of the agreement,” Evert said during a recent interview, adding that audit firms working for retailers seek any nuance within a contract between the supplier and retailer to “find” a financial benefit for the retailer.

However, Evert said the position on audits by some retailers “has softened” in the past year, with some of that driven by the need to maintain working relationships with suppliers, and some softening the result of “just knowing that we (firms representing suppliers) are now here” and are “bringing the sunlight” to the issue.

‘INTENSE COMPETITION’
The language used by the companies who work with the major retailers give some idea of the nature of relationships. Apex Analytix promotes its “FirstStrike” software designed to “prevent overpayments to suppliers, identify risk and fraud” and automate systems between retailers and the supplier community.

“In the Retail industry, making the most of your buying power calls for having aggressive internal controls in place to manage it, leverage it, improve margins, and create profit,” notes the Apex website, with a January 2014 statement on the website noting that “pressures on procure-to-pay teams to make a strategic contribution to the business have never been greater.”

Greensboro, N.C.-baseed Publix Super Markets announced May 5 it would begin using FirstStrike “to audit large volumes of data.” Publix is the largest employee-owned grocery chain in the U.S.

An April 2014 promotional by Apex said “wide-ranging audits” are now the norm, with 92% of retailers auditing for cash discounts, 69% auditing for freight compliance and 100% auditing to review statements and check for duplicate payments.

“Intense competition and an unrelenting focus on cost control and profitability are causing retail merchandising and payment teams to upend the status quo. New audit best practices are emerging with 50% having recovery results-based incentives, 86% of retailers using external audit services and 100% of retailers surveyed are implementing shared services,” Apex noted.

Atlanta-based PRGX is a global “recovery audit services” operation that works with companies in more than 30 countries and, according to company literature, works for more than 75% of the top 20 global retailers. The PRGX tagline is: “Discover Your Hidden Profits.”

NO SLOWDOWN IN 2014
Evert and Arthur said the contract audit process has been active since the late 1950s, but the pace gradually began to rise in the mid- to late 1990s and ramped up in the late 2000s.

Arthur smiled and shook his head in the negative when asked if the pace might soon slow, and then noted that in some recent cases it has reached “egregious” levels.

Harvest Revenue, which opened for business in 2010, represents suppliers during the audit process. Their business has boomed. Revenue grew 300% in 2012, and the company has grown from less than a handful of people to around 20 employees today. Evert and Arthur, who prior to Harvest Revenue worked both sides of the supplier/retailer audit puzzle, said 2014 is shaping up to be by far their busiest year.

Evert and other sources said large suppliers are not immune from the intense audit process. Harvest first began to work with smaller suppliers, but has seen more interest from larger suppliers in recent years.

Another reason for the growing intensity is competition for business among the auditors who represent the retailers.

“If you promise (the retailer) to get more (money from post-payment audits), then you have to deliver those numbers,” Evert said.

Rapid Training Solutions doesn’t provide suppliers with direct help when facing audit claims, but the Bentonville-based company does provide an “Understanding Chargebacks & Deductions” class. It’s one of just seven classes in its “On Demand” course schedule.

Jami Dennis, a supplier consultant and retail expert with Rapid Training Solutions, has said suppliers may be most at risk for potential errors or audit claims during peak sales seasons. Pricing errors, “masterpacking,” and errors related to purchase orders are some of the leading causes of chargeback deductions, Dennis said.

Evert also says suppliers have a responsibility to learn the retailer system. He has credited Wal-Mart for its Retail Link system that provides suppliers with product tracking and other information.

“Wal-Mart gives suppliers an immense amount of information within Retail Link that can be used to track the products through the point of sale. Other retailers don’t come anywhere near this level of visibility. But no one is babysitting the supplier. It’s up to them to jump in there and figure it out,” Evert said in a January 2014 interview.

‘VENDOR ABRASION’ CONCERNS
The industry has matured enough in the past few years that interesting terms have developed. For example, PRGX seeks to minimize “vendor abrasion levels,” which means they work to push aggressive audits while trying to maintain good relationships with suppliers. 

“By combining four decades worth of audit experience with the latest proprietary data management and analytics tools, we now audit closer to the transaction; audit faster than ever before; identify new insights into your data and address the sources and causes of overpayments before they occur,”PRGX notes on its website. “The result: optimized recovery dollars, minimized vendor abrasion levels and best practice service level agreements - all at the industry's lowest total cost of recovery.”

Hargrove, with Wal-Mart, said the retailer works to “streamline” the process to ensure it is more efficient for all parties. He said it is in the retailer’s best interests to collaborate with all suppliers in order to keep products on shelves, inventory managed and prices low.

‘MOST DOMINANT’ AUDIT FIRM
Connolly, based in Wilton, Conn., and claiming to be the world’s largest privately-held recovery auditing firm, reviews more than a trillion transactions a year and recovers almost $2 billion annually in overpayments. Connolly works only in the retail and healthcare sectors, with company materials saying its clients include 19 of the top 20 retailers and seven of the top eight healthcare payers.

Evert said Connolly is the “most dominant” auditor with respect to audit claims between Wal-Mart and suppliers.

Connolly includes “case studies” on its website to explain how it helps retail clients. Those include the following.
• “A large pharmacy retailer’s indirect purchase contract with a major pharmaceutical manufacturer had different effective dates for rebates when compared to quarterly rebate terms. Connolly’s audit determined the exact details for every change in both terms and timing for the contract period. In their research, the auditors worked closely with the manufacturer to rectify the discrepancies, ensure the accuracy of the financial calculations, and recover nearly $800k for the pharmacy retailer – a 25% understatement of rebate dollars due the retailer.”

• “Connolly’s audit identified a large promotional purchase that reduced the product’s retail price. During the promotion, however, retail sales of this product far exceeded the amount purchased specifically for the promotion. It was in fact determined that most of the product received and sold at retail for the promotion was paid for at the higher non-promotional cost. Connolly built the supporting documentation and recovered $327k in price protection funds due the retailer per industry standards."

Fort Smith was home to Arkansas'first compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling station and now Fort Smith is home to one of the few independent CNG conversion businesses in the state. The business, Falcon CNG, handles everything from single vehicle CNG conversions to fleet-wide conversions.

Owner Barry Rowton said the business is more than just conversion, saying he provides "maintenance, service and repair of the same."

Rowton, who spent more than 11 years with Arkansas-Oklahoma Gas (AOG), said with the growth of CNG in the region — including an expected second regional fueling station in Fort Smith operated by AOG — the time was right for him to launch a conversion business.

"With the markets around us and our market picking up, along with the price of natural gas staying low while petroleum is going up, with the interest in western Arkansas going up, the market was a perfect fit."

Rowton said he is the only employee of the business located at 3707 Wheeler Ave., in Fort Smith, but he does have two technicians he can call in for assistance as needed.

While not providing revenue figures, Rowton did say that in the month he has been open, he has already had more than 20 people "either call or show up wanting conversions or service and we have a couple of fleets wanting conversion."

He said conversion costs have fallen in recent years, making it more affordable for more everyday drivers and fleet managers to justify the cost. The cost for a half-ton pickup truck, Rowton said, would be about $6,500 for a 13.5 gallon CNG tank installation.

What could help businesses invest in conversions is the possibility of a new program from the state that could rebate up to $4,500 or 50% of the conversion cost for fleets of three or more vehicles, Rowton said.

"The Arkansas rebate is supposed to be released in July," he said. "The details are only verbal from the Arkansas Department of Energy."

It would not be the first time the state has provided CNG-based incentives. In 2011, the Arkansas Energy Office made available $470,000 in grant money to build at least two CNG fueling stations in the state.

Arkansas is not the only market Rowton is eyeing for business. He hopes his proximity to Oklahoma and the existence of a CNG fueling station at the On Cue Express in Arkoma, Okla., a small town located across the street from Fort Smith, drives business.

While Arkansas could be offering rebates for conversion as soon as July and the rebates will only apply to EPA-certified CNG conversion kits, Oklahoma offers an income tax credit that Rowton said allows all CNG conversions to qualify.

But no matter which of the two states a customer may call home, Rowton is ready to make the conversions a reality. And for people possibly interested in CNG for cost savings but are worried about using CNG instead of conventional gasoline, Rowton said converted vehicles still has gas tanks that can carry conventional fuel so individuals driving outside of a CNG fueling area are not left in the middle of nowhere with no way to refuel.

"A lot of people don't understand that you do not give up the ability to drive on gas," he said. "The vehicle is not modified, you simply add on a fuel storage, management and delivery system. … If you run out of CNG, the computer instantly switches to gas. The car doesn't die."

In all, Rowton said there are about five independent CNG conversion businesses in Arkansas, including his own. He said several other places offer CNG conversion, including car dealerships (Smith Auto Group in Fort Smith being one), but the conversions are typically limited to the dealer's specific brand, meaning a Toyota could not be converted by a GM dealership and vice versa.

"If you have something outside of that (brand), you can't go to that (dealer for a conversion). That's where someone like me would be a better fit."

Arkansas’ jobless rate fell to 6.4% in May, but the state’s labor force continues to decline in size, and the number of employed during May was the lowest level of the year. Overall, the state’s labor force size and number of employed remains below pre-recession levels.

The May rate of 6.4% was below the April rate of 6.6% and below the May 2013 rate of 7.5%, according to the report issued Friday (June 20) by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The May figures are subject to revision.

Year-over-year, the Education and Health Services sector was up 3,800 jobs, the state’s tourism sector gained an estimated 3,000 jobs, the Trade, Transportation and Utilities sector was up 2,800 jobs, and the construction sector was up 1,500 jobs.

Arkansas’ labor force was an estimated 1.315 million in May, below the 1.322 million in April, and down 0.08% compared to 1.326 million in May 2013. The year-over-year comparison shows an estimated 10,952 fewer Arkansans in the labor force. There are 45,513 fewer Arkansans in the labor force compared to May 2007, a decline of almost 3.34%.

The number of employed in Arkansas during May was 1.231 million, below April employment of 1.235 million, buit up an estimated 4,649 jobs compared to the 1.226 million in May 2013.

The number of unemployed was an estimated 84,124 during May, down from the 86,761 in April, and well below the 99,725 in May 2013.

Arkansas’ annual average jobless rate fell from 7.9% during 2011 to a revised 7.5% during 2012. The initial annual average jobless rate for Arkansas during 2013 is 7.5%.

UPDATED INFO:Greg Kaza, economic researcher and executive director of the Arkansas Policy Foundation, said the 1,800 new Arkansas jobs in May “means the state's labor market has regained nearly 80 percent of payroll employment lost as a result of the Great Recession.” He added that the jobs market in Arkansas “is slowly approaching the peak achieved in the previous cycle, 1,209,800 (February 2008).”

Kaza also noted that BLS figures show that 30 of Arkansas' 75 counties added new jobs from the end of the Great Recession (June 2009) through December. The top five counties for job gains are: Benton (+9,718), Washington (+5,244), Craighead (+4,379), Faulkner (+2,210), and Pulaski (+1,686) counties.

ARKANSAS SECTOR NUMBERS
In the Trade, Transportation and Utilities sector — Arkansas’ largest job sector — employment during May was an estimated 243,500, down from 243,600 in April and ahead of the 240,700 during May 2013. Employment in the sector hit a high of 251,800 in March 2007.

Manufacturing jobs in Arkansas during May totaled 153,700, down compared to 154,600 in April and above the 152,200 in May 2013. Employment in the manufacturing sector fell in 2013 to levels not seen since early 1968. Peak employment in the sector was 247,300 in February 1995.

Government job employment during May was 214,800, down from 215,800 in April and below the 215,200 during May 2013.

The state’s Education and Health Services sector during May had 175,900 jobs, up from the 173,400 during April and up from 172,100 during May 2013. Employment in the sector is up more than 23% compared to May 2004.

Arkansas’ tourism sector (leisure & hospitality) employed 107,800 during May, down from 108,700 during April, and above the 104,800 during May 2013. Employment in this sector reached a high of 109,100 in March.

The construction sector employed an estimated 47,000 in May, down from 47,400 in April and above the 45,500 in May 2013. The sector is off the employment high of 57,600 reached in March 2007.

NATIONAL, REGIONAL DATA

The BLS report also noted that 49 states had unemployment rate decreases from a year earlier, and one state had and increase. Alabama’s jobless rate was 6.8% in May, up from 6.4% in May 2013. The national jobless rate during May was 6.3%, and was down from the 7.5% in May 2013.

Rhode Island had the highest unemployment rate among the states in May at 8.2%. North Dakota again had the lowest jobless rate at 2.6%.

The May jobless rate in Oklahoma was 4.6%, unchanged compared to April and down from 5.4% in May 2013.

Missouri’s jobless rate during May was 6.6%, unchanged compared to April and down from 6.7% in May 2013.

Saudi Arabian Prince Saud bin Khalid Al-Faisal recently visited NanoMech and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Northwest Arkansas as part of a Eisenhower Fellowship trip to investigate new approaches to sustainable economic growth, diversification, and exploring innovations to increase his country’s business potential, according to press release from Springdale-based NanoMech.

Prince Saud is the Deputy Governor for Investment Affairs, Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) and President, National Competitiveness Center (NCC). He is responsible for enhancing the competitiveness of Saudi Arabia.

NanoMech was founded in 2002 and creates advanced engineering materials through patent and patent-pending nano-engineered and nano-manufactured product development. NanoMech has discovered several innovations in machining and manufacturing, lubrication and energy, and strategic military applications. NanoMech is a member of President Obama’s Materials Genome Initiative, the U.S. Manufacturing Competitiveness Initiative (USMCI) and the U.S. Technology Leadership and Strategy Initiative, both based in Washington, D.C.

“This has certainly been an excellent year for NanoMech,” Chairman and CEO Jim Phillips said in the statement. “The company continues to gain momentum and it is the innovators who will help drive results, efficiencies and progress.” Phillips also noted, “Our groundbreaking products dramatically improve performance, durability and sustainability, while significantly decreasing costs to manufacture.”

The Prince toured NanoMech’s factory, laboratories and world headquarters in Springdale and met with Phillips and Dr. Ajay Malshe, NanoMech’s CTO and founder, to discuss opportunities involving NanoMech's revolutionary enhanced fossil fuel technology. A trip has been planned for Phillips and Malshe to visit R&D facilities in Saudi Arabia.

Prince Saud also visited the Institute of Nanoscience and Engineering at the University of Arkansas. NanoMech rents the Institute’s scanning electron microscope for surface morphology, cross-sectional analysis and elemental analysis. It uses the Institute’s transmission electron microscope for grain/crystal size analysis and elemental analysis, and its X-ray diffraction allows the firm to determine crystal structures/orientation for estimating crystalline.

As part of the visit to NanoMech, Prince Saud was provided a special tour of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art by Chairman and Founder Alice Walton. While on the museum tour, Prince Saud also met Walmart Stores CEO Doug McMillon and members of the Crystal Bridges Board of Directors.

Prince Saud then visited with Gov. Mike Beebe in Little Rock to talk about the economic impact companies like NanoMech have on the economy.

“Governor Beebe had an engaging discussion with Prince Saud on the history of Saudi Arabia, its government, culture and business models,” noted the NanoMech statement.

Walmart Canada hired Dirk Van den Berghe as president and CEO, replacing Shelley Broader who was recently promoted by the retail giant to a CEO role that oversees retail operations in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Canada.


Van den Berghe will assume his new position effective Aug. 1 and will report to Broader. He holds 30 years of international experience across Europe , Asia and the United States and joins Wal-Mart from the Delhaize Group, a global food retailer where most recently he was CEO for the company's Belgium and Luxembourg operations.


"We're very pleased Dirk will be leading Walmart Canada as we celebrate 20 amazing years of saving Canadians money so they can live better," said Broader. "Under Dirk's leadership, Delhaize has been successful in several countries, and his vast experience will allow us to strengthen our growing food business in Canada and complements our highly-successful general merchandise operation. One of Walmart's greatest strengths is having exceptional leaders to drive our continued growth, and Dirk is a prime example of this talent."


Van den Berghe has two decades of experience teaching international business at universities across Europe , Asia and the United States, and more than a decade of experience as an international trade commissioner for the Government of Belgium.


"Walmart Canada is a remarkable and intensely customer-focused business with a track record of growth and performance," Van den Berghe said. "I'm honored to have the privilege to lead this dynamic business and team and serve our customers through Walmart's nearly 400 stores in Canada and its online business.”


He holds a doctorate in economics from Sofia University in Bulgaria and speaks seven languages including English, French and Dutch. Van den Berghe and his family will relocate from Belgium to the Toronto area.

Springdale-based United Bank announced Friday (June 20) that it has converted the bank’s charter from a federal savings bank to an Arkansas State-Chartered institution. The charter conversion was approved on June 11 by the state banking board and the bank’s primary regulator will be the Arkansas State Bank Department.

Concurrent with this conversion the bank was also approved to become a member of the Federal Reserve System who will now serve as the bank’s federal regulator. Until the recent conversion, United Bank was regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

“Bank ownership and our board of directors believe that the conversion to a state charter and being a Federal Reserve member bank will be a good fit for our bank due to their understanding of Arkansas community banks. The State Bank Department has staff located in Northwest Arkansas and has a closer pulse on local economic conditions and community banks” said Nathan Gairhan, bank president and CEO. “The charter conversion will have no impact at all on our customer base.”

The Northwest Arkansas based institution has $140 million in assets, operating in two locations in Springdale and one each in Fayetteville and Rogers. The bank also has loan production offices located in Conway and Tulsa. The bank was started 35 years ago by Don Pitts and has had the same ownership since it was founded.

Gov. Mike Beebe is heading overseas for his third European trade mission in five years. In a recent Talk Business & Politics interview, Beebe said he will travel to London, Paris and the Czech Republic beginning July 12.

“Hopefully, they won’t kill me like they did in the China trip a couple of years ago. We were 11 days in China, 13 days counting the travel times. We were in eight different hotels in eight different cities and provinces,” Beebe said.

Beebe traveled to London, Paris and Hamburg in 2009 for a series of high-level meetings with existing companies doing business in Arkansas and new ones he hoped to land. The governor also visited France in 2012 for an agricultural related economic trip to meet with French government officials interested in promoting food exports and research between the two entities. That trip also included visits with Dassault Falcon Jet, which announced a $60 million expansion of its jet completion campus in Little Rock several months later.

Also in 2012, Beebe made his earlier referenced extensive economic development tour of China in an effort to open up talks for more business exchange.

The upcoming European trade trip will last nine days from July 12-21.

Beebe plans to attend the London Farnborough International Air Show — one of the world’s largest aerospace and aviation manufacturing trade shows in the world. Representatives from several Arkansas companies will also attend, and Beebe plans to travel to France to meet again with Dassault Falcon Jet, the Paris-based high-end aircraft builder that has one of the largest international footprints in Arkansas.

“We have expanded that [Dassault] with the potential for even further expansion and maybe even a supplier there too,” Beebe said.

The Czech Republic is new territory for Arkansas economic development officials, but the former eastern bloc country sports growing manufacturers, including gun-related and automobile-related companies.

“They’ve had very little, if any, state gubernatorial contact in the Czech Republic and there are a number of businesses that are looking at a North American presence,” Beebe said. “It’s a fertile field because everyone is going to China and Taiwan and Paris and London and all those other places. We’d like to get in on the ground floor of what the Czech Republic companies might be interested in.”

The Arkansas Colleges of Health Education has selected Risley & Associates as the lead architectural firm for its proposed Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine to be built at Chaffee Crossing in east Fort Smith.

The Fort Smith-based firm will be paired with Cromwell Architects Engineers of Little Rock to complete the school's master plan, including programming, schematic design and lab and lecture space design, a press release said.

The press release stated that the first building to be designed and built on the campus would house the proposed Osteopathic School and a proposed physician's assistant school.

"The design for that building is expected to be near 100,000 square feet and (either) two (or) three stories tall," the release said, adding that the building will be part of what will eventually be "a four-building quad sitting on the wooded acreage west of Chad Colley Boulevard."

The master plan calls for the buildings to blend in with the surrounding environment.

"We could not be more pleased that Tim (Risley) and his team were selected for the job," said President and CEO Kyle Parker of the Arkansas Colleges of Health Education. "After interviewing multiple firms from across the United States, we are confident we have the most experienced talent working on this project."

Risley also expressed his excitement and said his firm would work to keep as much of the work local as possible.

"90% of the architectural and consulting work will remain local; I'm very proud of that. We've traveled with the College team to view two other similar-type campuses and we'll be incorporating some of those best practices into the overall design."

Risley said once a construction manager has been hired, dirt work could begin as soon as September, with construction beginning during the first quarter of 2015.

A failed May 1 vote on whether to unionize workers at an OK Foods facility in Heavener, Okla., could be dismissed by the National Labor Relations Board after it claimed the company interfered with the vote.

In a letter written by NLRB Field Examiner Amy Novara, she details a long list of allegations against the company related to the May 1 vote, including financial incentives to ensure the unionization vote failed.

"During the past six months, the Employer granted wage increases and retroactive pay to employees, including prior to the filing of the petition on March 20, 2014, and during the critical period after the filing of the petition, in order to discourage union activities and support of the union in violation of Section 8(a)(3) of the Act," she wrote.

She also said after March 20, OK Foods denied wage increases and retroactive pay to employees that had engaged in union activities.

Novara's letter continued, alleging the company threatened employees if they voted in favor of unionizing with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1000 during the May 1 vote.

"In or about February 2014, the Employer, but Supervisor Sparks, informed employees that they could not address wage increases and retroactive pay because of the Union and threatened employees with loss of wages if employees selected the union as their collective bargaining representative, in violation of Section 8(a)(1) of the Act," she wrote.

Other similar allegations were made in her letter against OK Foods CEO Trent Goins, who she said "informed employees that wage increases and retroactive pay were being withheld because of union activity in violation of Section 8(a)(1) of the Act."

An attempt to contact Goins for this story was unsuccessful.

Novara stated in her letter that a settlement agreement attached to her letter "notifies employees or members that the Charged Party (OK Foods) will cease and desist from engaging in conduct proscribed by the Act," adding that the May 1 election would be thrown out and another election on unionization would be held.

Even though the NLRB's field examiner has laid out her case, with 18 different alleged violations of the law, OK Foods has not acknowledged that it has agreed to the settlement by the deadline date of Thursday, June 26. Novara stated that if the company did not accept the settlement, a formal complaint could be filed against OK Foods.

The UFCW said after the failed vote that it would file and objection, with UFCW's Anthony Elmo saying the company "subverted the vote as much as possible."

In a statement Monday, UFCW Local 1000 President Ricky Burris said forming a union would protect workers from the types of actions alleged in the NLRB letter.

“We want these workers to get a fair chance to have their voices heard. OK Foods has to rely on lies, threats, and coercion to scare these workers away from forming a union. In reality, forming a union will help protect them from a company that obviously has no respect for them whatsoever. I’m excited that these workers are being given a chance to vote again," he said.

The union said workers have complained to the UFCW about "low wages, expensive healthcare benefits, and unfair and unequal treatment at (the) OK Foods chicken processing plant in Heavener."

It is unclear when a new election could be held.

Efforts have also been made to unionize Fort Smith and Muldrow, Okla., OK Foods facilities, though no formal votes or actions have taken place like the May 1 vote in Heavener.

OK Foods is a subsidiary of Industrias Bachoco (IBA), a company which boasts several unionized facilities in its native Mexico. Shares of Industrias Bachoco were trading at $52.67 during mid-day trading, up nearly a tenth of a point.

Jim Laughton was named as the new Language Arts and Humanities Department Chair at NorthWest Arkansas Community College upon the retirement of Dr. Audley Hall, effective June 30.
 
Laughton will provide leadership to the Language Arts and Humanities Department within the college’s Division of Communication and Arts.
 
He joined the NWACC faculty in 1999, and he has been serving as composition coordinator for English programs. During the most recent academic year, he was named a recipient of the John and Suanne Roueche Excellence Award, which is presented by the League for Innovation in the Community College to deserving community college educators throughout the country. He previously received recognition from the Arkansas Association of Two-Year Colleges and from the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development.
 
Laughton holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, and a master’s degree in English from the same institution. His activities at NWACC also have included mentoring of faculty and developing supplemental instruction workshops for improving skills in writing.
 
Dr. Anita Jones, longtime dean of the Division of Communication and Arts, said Laughton possesses excellent teaching skills.

“He also has an innate gift that enables him to connect easily with students and colleagues throughout the college. Jim also has a genuine love for learning, and he is able to help students engage with new content in a way that enriches their studies and their college experience,” Jones said.
 
She also praised Hall’s service in that role over the past two decades. Jones also is retiring effective June 30, and she said it seems appropriate that both she and Hall are leaving at the same time.

“We have worked so closely together,” she said, “and the fact that we are leaving together makes it easier for me in what is truly a bittersweet experience.”
 
Jones and Hall were honored at a farewell reception on May 2 by members of the Communication and Arts Division.
 

Keeping shelves better stocked to boost sales and top line revenue is a priority among Wal-Mart executives working to break the cycle of negative to flat comparable store sales that have dogged the retailer for the past year.

Jeff Davis, chief financial officer for Walmart U.S., recently outlined the retailer’s strategy to drive sustainable sales growth by leveraging what they believe are strong Wal-Mart fundamentals. Davis spoke at the Jeffries Global Consumer Conference in Nantuckett, Mass., on June 19. He said the retailer desires to drive sales in physical stores but also across their digital platform and that effort starts with ensuring the shelves in all stores are well stocked.

Davis and Bill Simon, CEO of Walmart U.S., have each said the retailer recently revamped the way the product gets to the shelf and is reordered.

“What we've done this past year is we really try to demystify what we were doing. Previously we had a number of algorithmic exercises we were asking our associates to go through in order to make sure we had the right product in the right place. But we just quite honestly we got down to the basics and went back to simplifying the process,” Davis said. “It is about receiving inventory in the evenings and getting it on the shelf. It's about making sure that if it is not on the shelf that it is appropriately put into a bin in the back.”

He said when the items are sold, Wal-Mart’s point of sales data system lets them know to go pick it and get it back on the shelf.

“It is that simple,” Davis said. “And what is amazing about this is we actually have seen a significant improvement not only in our associate satisfaction, our productivity, the customers are also responding and we are actually seeing a lift in our comps in those stores that are actually executing the best on this what we call OSA First.”

ROOM TO GROW
Simon also said the in-stock percentages are higher after the retailer moved to the less cumbersome method of tracking inventory in the store. During the recent shareholder media day (June 5) he said simplifying the process “eliminating the algorithmic gymnastics in the former system” has made a difference in execution and the result has been improved in-stocks for the retailer, better than historical levels.

Davis said the in-stock goals of 95% have been increased as high as 97%. With nearly $280 billion in U.S. sales last year, just one percentage point improvement holds potential for sales to grow.

“We're really pleased by what is happening there and it is helping us drive our comps in certain key categories,” Davis added.

With reduced store labor and thousands of new products added to the average supercenter, on-shelf availability has been at the forefront of Wal-Mart and its suppliers’ minds for sometime.

SPARC 2.0
Duncan Mac Naughton, chief merchandising officer for Walmart U.S., has said the out-of-stock issue is a multibillion dollar opportunity for the retailer and its supplier base. Last summer, these phantom sales prompted Wal-Mart to announce the testing a program called SPARC 2.0 to help give suppliers more visibility into their inventory sitting in stores.

In theory, SPARC 2.0 allows suppliers and third party merchandisers to access inventory data with their smart phones instead of having to wave down a Walmart worker and use a “telzon” device to see their in-store inventory. It also gives the supplier using the application the ability to print labels for missing products and “pick lists” to get the shelves restocked as soon as possible.

SPARC 2.0, dubbed the the Supplier Portal Allowing Retail Coverage initiative, was put to use in about 150 stores last fall in hopes of raising on-shelf-availability of product sold by the retailer. Wal-Mart admitted that out-of-stocks were problematic in some stores and expected SPARC 2.0 to make a difference.

The retailer did not provide an update on the SPARC 2.0 program despite two requests, but one of the early adopters — Crossmark — gives the program high marks. As a third party merchandiser, Crossmark works inside Wal-Mart’s stores on behalf of the retailer as well as supplier customers.

“I think SPARC 2.0 has been a great success. The ability to get the important OSA-related work done in-store without asking for the help of a Walmart Store associate is very important to our productivity and the return on our client’s investment,” said John Owen, executive vice president for Walmart and Sam’s Club Team at Crossmark.

Owen said the industry strives for 99% in-stock percentage.

“I applaud Walmart for being forward thinking on this. When on shelf availability improves we all win, and most importantly we do a better job of serving our Walmart customer,” he said.

Citing an improved labor market and sales tax collections, the city of Fort Smith was the top performing of 16 Arkansas cities measured by an economic index created by Arkansas Tech University. The data presented in the index may be “counter intuitive” when compared against other data that shows weakness in labor markets and sales tax collections, said an index author.

The Arkansas Tech Business Index (ATBI) uses a labor index, housing market index, construction index and retail sales index to compare 16 Arkansas cities. The March 2014 index gave Fort Smith an index rating of 106.32 for the first quarter of 2014, the highest rating among the 16 cities measured on the index.

The index is based around 100. A city reading above 100 indicates that the city is doing better than the state average from 2009 to the present. In the March report, seven have an index rating above 100 and nine have an index rating above 100 for the first quarter of 2014.

“Fort Smith came on strong in the first quarter ATBI,” Dr. Marc Fusaro, associate professor of economics at Arkansas Tech and developer of the instrument for the Arkansas Tech Business Index, said in the statement. “This strength is led by the retail sector, which is always strong for Fort Smith, having an ATBI retail sales index value of 116.7 in the first quarter. Helping to drive the strong showing is a drop in the unemployment rate to 6.5 percent in March from an average of 7.5 percent in 2013.”

Following is the March index for the 16 cities.
Bentonville: 104.38
Conway: 102.49
El Dorado: 93.31
Fayetteville: 105.64
Fort Smith: 108.36
Hot Springs: 100.85
Jonesboro: 99.87
Little Rock: 98.53
North Little Rock: 95.27
Pine Bluff: 91.58
Rogers: 105.85
Russellville: 96.25
Searcy: 99.59
Springdale: 104.58
Texarkana: 94.45
West Memphis: 93.06

Fort Smith Mayor Sandy Sanders said the March index from ATU reflects the city’s ability to adjust to economic change.

“The data from Arkansas Tech University is a testament to the perseverance of our citizens, and the ability of our businesses and entrepreneurs to adjust in a rapidly-changing economic environment. Almost every day we spend time on jobs and economic growth,” Sanders said in a statement. “Our corporate citizens continue to innovate, as does our military. Emerging technologies are a focus in nearly every sector, bringing with it specialized jobs and higher wages. … In the past 18 months, we’ve seen announcements from new and expanding organizations in our region – worth $400 million and commitments for 2,300 new jobs.”

While the ATU report gave the city a high index number for retail sales, Fort Smith sales tax collections have not shown growth in recent years. Collections so far in the first quarter of 2014 were $11.688 million, while the same period in 2013 saw collections of $11.702 million. The same period in 2012 saw $13.586 million, and $12.932 million in 2011.

The labor market index of 103.05 for March 2014 comes with the number of employed in the Fort Smith region being 119,603. By way of comparison, the region the city had an index of 91.82 in March 2009 when the number of employed in the region was 123,574, almost 4,000 more employed, or 3.21% better than March 2014. Also, the monthly employment average in first quarter of 2014 was 118,807, just 0.14% above the average during the first quarter of 2013, and 1.96% below the first quarter of 2012.

In March 2014, the Fort Smith metro workforce totaled an estimated 128,695, down more than 4.3% – or 5,847 – compared to 134,542 in March 2009.

When asked about the index comparison to regional jobs figures and sales tax collections, Fusaro said the index is relative and simply compares Fort Smith to the other 16 cities.

“For example, from March 2009 to March 2013 the Fort Smith labor force fell from 42255 to 39551. The ATBI labor force index rose from 99.85 to 102.79 in the same period. This seems counter intuitive. The reason for this is that the labor force for the state fell at an even faster rate during this time period. So Fort Smith has done relatively well compared to the rest of the state,” Fusaro noted in an e-mail response. “The best way to evaluate the labor market performance in absolute terms is to just look at the size of the labor force. The ATBI is not designed to replace looking at raw data. It rather, provides different information, the relative performance across the state.”

Fayetteville 2030: Food City Scenario project, led by the University of Arkansas Community Design Center, was recently honored with a merit award by the Congress for the New Urbanism in Buffalo, N.Y.

The project seeks to build food sustainability by promoting local urban agriculture. The awards ceremony brought architects, urban planners, developers and advocates together to network, learn and collaborate.

Fayetteville Mayor Lioneld Jordan was one of about two dozen leaders from Northwest Arkansas who attended the meeting in Buffalo. The Walton Family Foundation funded the travel of this region’s leaders to the conference, which included a special meeting with the Congress board and chief executive officer. Mayors, chamber of commerce officials, county commissioners and Northwest Arkansas Council officials attended in an effort to develop greater urban livability and planning coordination in the region. Jordan said the event was educational and inspiring as ideas were shared from cities around the country.

“A lot of the things that they talked about are things we’re looking at in this city,” he said. “I think they showed us some easier ways to do them.”

Food City Scenario is a solid project that caught the attention of the Charter Awards judges and also features some ideas already being implemented in Fayetteville, Jordan said.

“We’ve got to look at urban development different than we have in the last 50 years for sure,” Jordan said. The award recognition “shows that we’re doing some stuff that’s even a little outside the box.”

The Fayetteville City Council recently passed a comprehensive urban agriculture ordinance, which allows city residents to raise goats and bees, plus more chickens than previously allowed. It also allows them to sell produce grown in their home gardens. Next, city officials plan to look at the possibility of planting fruit and nut trees alongside public streets.

“I’m a firm supporter of people being able to sustain themselves and being able to grow their own food,” Jordan said. As more people are living in urban areas than rural ones, “we’ve got to learn how to produce our own food.”

Fayetteville 2030: Food City Scenario, speculates on what Fayetteville might look like if the city’s growth integrated local urban food production sustainable enough to create self-sufficiency. Fayetteville’s population of 75,000 is expected to double over the next 20 years. Although the region is the most prosperous in the state, it also has one of the state’s highest child hunger rates.

Supported by the Clinton Global Initiative, Food City Scenario is an urban agricultural project that aims to weave agricultural urbanism back into the city environment, with the prospect of helping Fayetteville achieve greater food security and resiliency, said Steve Luoni, director of the Community Design Center.

Most cities stock a three-day supply of food, mostly from global supply chains, “meaning that we are only nine meals away from anarchy,” Luoni said. This scenario devises a middle-scale urban food production model that lies between the scale of the industrial farm and the individual garden, called the “missing middle.”

In this plan, this foodshed – a geographic area of connected food production and consumption – functions as an ecological municipal utility, featuring green infrastructure; public, food-producing landscapes, such as edible forest farms, orchard-lined streets, fruit and nut boulevards; food hubs; organic waste recycling districts; and various other agrarian initiatives, according to Luoni.