News Briefs

Pet Valu Holdings has chosen Greg Ramier as its new CEO. 

The Canadian pet goods retailer announced on Tuesday that its current president and chief operating officer would take the reins on Sept. 21, replacing retiring CEO Richard Maltsbarger. 

Ramier has been with the Markham, Ontario-based retailer since August 2024. Prior to that he was at Loblaw Cos., where he was the market division president. 

Once Ramier assumes the top executive role, Maltsbarger will serve as a senior adviser, assisting the leadership transition until he retires in April 2026. Maltsbarger has served as CEO for seven years, taking the company through the COVID-19 pandemic, when pet ownership skyrocketed. During that period, Pet Valu doubled its revenues and grew its store network to more than 800 locations. Eventually it aims to have 1,200 stores. 

The succession news followed Pet Valu recording a second-quarter profit of 21.8 million Canadian dollars, up from CA$17.8 million for the same period a year ago, with rerevenues climbing from CA$265.2 million to CA$280.6 million.

PetSmart has appointed Jesica Duarte as executive vice president and chief commercial officer, the retailer announced on Aug. 4. She will lead the merchandising, marketing, digital, proprietary brands and merchandise planning and allocation teams.

The move is part of a broader strategy to accelerate growth and enhance the customer experience, according to the company.

“[Duarte] is a strategic and growth-minded leader, with an impressive career tenure working across successful retail brands,” Ken Hicks, PetSmart president and CEO, said in a media release. “She has led teams through significant business and process transformations, while delivering strong business results.”

Duarte brings more than 30 years of experience across the retail, grocery, beauty and beverage industries. Most recently, she served as group vice president of national merchandising at Albertsons Cos, which she departed from in 2024. 

She previously spent nearly 12 years at Walmart in a variety of leadership roles, including VP of private brands for general merchandise, VP of product development and sourcing for home, chief merchandising and marketing officer for Walmart Chile, and director of marketing for Walmart U.S.

Earlier in her career, Duarte held merchandising and marketing roles at Molson Coors Beverage Company, Beam Suntory, Estee Lauder and J.C. Penney.

“This is an exciting time at PetSmart, and I’m thrilled to be joining this impressive team at such a pivotal time in the business,” Duarte said in the release. “I’m equally pleased to bring together my own passions for merchandising, marketing and meeting the customer where they are with omnichannel capabilities.”

Duarte, who is a native of Chile, holds an MBA from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree in business and economics from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. She is also an advocate for the Hispanic community and previously served as chair of the Idaho Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

DoorDash has partnered with National Retail Solutions (NRS) to help small, independent retailers streamline e-commerce operations and reach more customers through the delivery platform.

Announced July 23, the integration leverages DoorDash’s retail APIs to automate online ordering directly through the NRS point-of-sale system and merchant portal. Retailers can now manage orders, sync inventory in near real time and fulfill deliveries without juggling multiple systems.

“This important partnership allows [local] businesses to thrive in the face of uncertainty,” Elie Y. Katz, CEO and president of NRS, said in a media release. “Automating access to DoorDash’s marketplace ensures merchants are able to present all of their available products … for seamless preparation and fulfillment.”

The nationwide rollout is initially focused on liquor retailers, with early participants already seeing positive results, per the release. Future plans include expanding access to more store types in the NRS network, which spans thousands of independent grocers, convenience stores and specialty retailers.

The move aligns with DoorDash’s broader push to support local businesses and opens up new omnichannel opportunities for brands and retailers looking to drive product availability in smaller-format, community-based stores.

Criteo and Mirakl Ads have unveiled a global integration designed to help retailers activate advertising from third-party sellers and “mid- to long-tail” advertisers — a hard-to-reach segment in retail media despite its collective buying power, the companies said in a media release.

The integration combines Criteo’s ad-serving and retail media technology with Mirakl Ads’ access to a large ecosystem of third-party sellers, enabling more efficient, scalable campaign execution through AI automation, unified workflows and self-service capabilities.

Criteo said the collaboration targets a growing need among retailers to reach advertisers who are eager to invest in retail media but fall outside typical sales and media management channels. Smaller brands and marketplace vendors may lack internal media buying resources, but research cited by the companies suggests they represent significant opportunity — spending 127% more than first-party brands on Amazon, for example.

“Together we enable third-party advertisers to easily launch campaigns, boosting product variety without adding operational complexity to retailers,” Melanie Zimmermann, general manager of global retail media at Criteo, said in the release.

Mirakl Ads Global VP Octavie Gosselin said the integration helps "advertisers and sellers to seamlessly participate in all retail programs" and shows the "growing importance of marketplaces in the commerce ecosystem."

Omnichannel ad tech firm Clinch has launched a commercial model designed to help advertisers scale smarter and more efficiently. 

The offering, called Unlimited Ad Serving, allows self-serve clients to run unlimited campaigns across channels — including CTV, social, DOOH, display and audio — for a fixed monthly fee through the company’s Flight Control platform.

The move is a response to growing frustration with traditional CPM-based (cost per mille/impressions) pricing models that tie costs to impression volume rather than business results.

“We’re shifting the conversation from how much you serve to what you achieve,” Oz Etzioni, CEO of Clinch, said in a media release. “This model frees self-service advertiser clients from the legacy trap where optimizing media buying ironically ends up costing more.”

The solution supports ad delivery at scale across all channels, with dynamic creative optimization (DCO) and flat-rate pricing designed to eliminate overage costs.

Etzioni said the model supports a broader industry shift toward outcome-driven media strategies. “Advertisers shouldn’t be budgeting for impressions — they should be budgeting for outcomes,” he added.

Clinch’s Flight Control platform serves as the company's omnichannel campaign orchestration hub, offering AI-powered personalization and campaign management tools.

The J.M. Smucker Co. announced that chief marketing officer Gail Hollander is planning to retire in April 2026. In the meantime, the legacy CPG is starting a search for her successor.

Hollander has served in the CMO role since 2023. She joined Orrville, Ohio-based Smucker from Publicis Group, where she built a 20-year career that culminated in a role as president and group client lead. At Publicis, she managed the client relationship with Smucker.

"[Hollander] has been instrumental in building our world-class brand-building model while supporting our people and culture," Smucker’s CEO and chair Mark Smucker said in a release. "Through her leadership and the exceptional team she has mentored, we have developed a powerful marketing organization that has supported the growth of many of our iconic brands. With enhanced capabilities throughout our businesses and teams, we are well-positioned to continue building brands that consumers love."

"I'm proud and humbled by the impact my team has had on our brands and the categories we participate in as we transformed our brand-building model, elevated our creative execution, and enhanced our media strategy to deliver meaningful reach and engagement," Hollander added. "Smucker has an exceptional portfolio of brands and a talented team behind them that pushes the envelope every single day. I look forward to watching what this team does in the future to take these brands and this company to even greater heights."

In June, Smucker shared its fourth quarter and full fiscal year results. Net sales dipped 3% during the quarter that ended on April 30 but rose 7% for the full fiscal year. 

Also this summer, Smucker announced that it is removing FD&C colors from all of its consumer food products by the end of 2027.

This article was originally published on P2PI sibling brand, Progressive Grocer.