Ukrop’s Super Markets Inc. has made changes to its successful fuelperks! program, making customers cash in rewards sooner and setting the bar higher for attaining them. The changes went into effect yesterday. Customers now have to spend $50 or more on a single transaction in order to earn a 5-cents-per-gallon discount, the company said yesterday on its Web site.

Planning a trip to Ukrop’s just got a bit easier for iPhone users. The Henrico County-based grocer is part of a network of supermarket retailers that are included in a new iPhone app by UCook.com. The Grocery Shopping Network, a Minneapolis-based marketing firm, owns Ucook. The site keeps a database of recipes and allows shoppers to print coupons.

Ukrop’s Super Markets Inc. could be holding off on consummating a deal to sell the family-owned grocer to find a buyer that shares its values, an industry expert says.

Talks between Henrico County-based Ukrop’s Super Markets Inc. and a potential private equity investor have fallen apart, according to Supermarket News, a grocery industry publication.

Ukrop’s Super Markets Inc. has decided to close its only Roanoke store after acknowledging late last year that it was having problems gaining a foothold. Closing the store Oct. 24 comes amid speculation that the family-owned grocery chain is for sale. “We wished it had worked out differently. It’s painful for many reasons,“ Robert S. Ukrop, the chain’s chairman, president and CEO, said in a statement yesterday.

If Ukrop’s Super Markets Inc. is looking for a buyer, as has been reported, it could be difficult for the Richmond-based grocery chain to find a company willing to spend the money to break into an already saturated market. One analyst has pegged the value of Ukrop’s at about $248 million, but it’s unclear if a supermarket chain would be willing, or even able, to invest that sort of money in a company already seeing its market share decline.

The sale of family-owned Ukrop’s Super Markets Inc., the dominant grocer in the Richmond market until last year, could alter the area’s already splintered supermarket landscape significantly, analysts said yesterday. As speculation swirled about the fate of the Richmond-based chain of 28 grocery stores, Robert S. Ukrop sent a letter to employees yesterday dismissing the talk as rumor.

Tennessee-based medicinal hosiery maker Fit Rite Medical is making its first foray into the Richmond market with an initial product placement at three area Ukrop’s grocery stores.

More than six months after the Richmond-based retailer made public its struggles in gaining sales and customers at its Roanoke store, executives say business hasn’t improved.

For the first time in more than 20 years, Ukrop’s Super Markets Inc. no longer commands the dominant spot for local grocery sales as increasing competition has nibbled away at its market share.

First Market Bank is hooking up with a bigger state bank, creating the largest Virginia-based financial institution. First Market Bank, mostly owned by Ukrop’s Super Markets Inc., said yesterday that it plans to join Union Bankshares Corp. in Bowling Green in a deal valued at $105 million.

Reader Mahlet Bluford wrote awhile back, asking for a recipe for corn pudding. “I am looking for Ukrop’s corn pudding recipe or one similar to it,“ she wrote. “I make corn pudding, but I can never get the consistency quite right. My corn pudding is tasty, but liquid from the corn and milk fills the dish once I scoop the corn pudding out for serving.“

A Virginia Commonwealth University foundation has purchased the property at Grace and Harrison streets where Ukrop’s operated a store until last spring. The VCU Real Estate Foundation bought the property last month for $9 million from BET Investments Inc., a Pennsylvania-based development company. But VCU’s plans are on hold for now because Ukrop’s Super Markets Inc. has a lease on the property through 2018, said Brian Ohlinger, VCU’s associate vice president for facilities management.

In a letter to customers yesterday, Ukrop’s Super Markets Inc. said it trimmed its fuelperks! discount in half and will focus attention on cutting prices at stores. Robert S. Ukrop, president and chief executive of the grocery chain, said that based on customer comments and dropping gasoline prices, the chain is getting more aggressive with in-store discounting. The chain lowered prices on about 2,500 items, he said.