Grocery Man

Supervalu Inc. (Eden Prairie, Minn.), the food retailer and distributor, has named Matthew Desmond corporate vp, real estate. Desmond, formerly director of real estate for both Kmart Corp. (Troy, Mich.) and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (Bentonville, Ark.), will be responsible for overseeing all of the company’s real estate functions, including store development, non-operating properties, store design and construction, project management, lease administration and facility maintenance. He will report to executive vp David Boehnen.

Before joining Wal-Mart, where he was director of real estate with responsibility for all of Wal-Mart’s domestic property management, lease administration and asset management functions, Desmond spent 13 years with Kmart, where he became group real estate director, responsible for all real estate functions in the western and central United States and in select international markets.

Supervalu is a $20 billion company with nearly 1500 retail grocery and general merchandise locations in 40 states under the Shoppers Food Warehouse, Cub Foods, Shop ‘n Save, bigg’s, Save-A-Lot, Deal$ – Nothing Over A Dollar, Farm Fresh, Scott’s Foods and Hornbachers banners. As a food wholesaler, it supplies about 2500 retail grocery stores in 48 states with brand-name and private-label goods.