Supervalu Sheds Another Grocery Chain: Is Your Supermarket For Sale?

(November 6th update: Giant Food Stores has announced the purchase of five out of the eight remaining East Coast Shop ‘n Save stores. All will be converted into Martin’s Food Market stores. The list of affected stores, and those that are still available for sale, has been updated below.)

(October 19th update: The remaining St. Louis-area Shop ‘n Save stores that were not sold to Schnucks will now close by November. The list of affected stores has been updated below.)

(September 17th update: Supervalu has announced plans to sell 19 of its St. Louis-area Shop ‘n Save stores to Schnucks. Those stores, and those that are still for sale, are listed below.)

(August 8th update: 13 East Coast Shop ‘n Save stores will be closing by early September, in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. The remaining stores in those states are still for sale. The affected stores are listed below.)

If your favorite grocery store is still owned by Supervalu, don’t get too attached to it. For the second time in two months, the company has announced plans to unload another of its grocery chains.

This time, it’s Shop ‘n Save. But whether your store is about to get a new owner, or is in danger of shutting down altogether, depends on whether it’s actually still owned by Supervalu.

Affected are the 38 St. Louis-area stores in Missouri and Illinois, and 22 stores that, up until about a year and a half ago, were Food Lion locations along the I-81 corridor in central Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. Unaffected are the 90 or so independently-owned Shop ‘n Save stores in western Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, Ohio, and West Virginia. Those used to be owned by Supervalu but no longer are – unlike the rest of the Shop ‘n Save stores, which are currently owned by Supervalu but soon will no longer be.

Got it?

“We’re pursuing the sale of our corporately-owned and operated Shop ‘n Save stores,” Supervalu CEO Mark Gross said late Tuesday. Further confusing the issue of all of these different Shop ‘n Saves, the Supervalu-owned Midwestern and Mid-Atlantic stores are actually considered two separate chains, with separate operations and even separate logos (as seen in the image above). But they have one thing in common. “These stores have faced challenges for some time now,” Gross said, “and we’re undertaking actions that we believe are in the best interests of our business and shareholders.”

There’s no word on prospective owners, whether they will buy all of the stores in one package, or if the stores will be sold one by one. Nor is it known whether stores that are sold will retain the Shop ‘n Save name, or whether unsold stores will ultimately be closed.

Shareholders have been pestering the company to dump its retail businesses, ever since Supervalu shifted its main focus to wholesale grocery sales. That shift accelerated after Supervalu sold five grocery chains, totaling more than 800 stores, to the owner of Albertsons back in 2013.

But Supervalu hung onto several smaller chains, and even grew its retail footprint with the 2016 purchase of 22 Food Lion stores, which it rebranded as Shop ‘n Save. Later that year, though, Supervalu sold Save-A-Lot, and last month it announced it would sell off its Farm Fresh stores piecemeal and retire the Farm Fresh name. And now it’s looking to sell Shop ‘n Save – including the stores that it acquired from Food Lion just a year and a half ago.

The move “demonstrates our efforts to transform this company and make Supervalu an increasingly wholesale-oriented company,” Gross said.

So what of Supervalu’s remaining grocery chains – Cub Foods, Hornbacher’s and Shoppers?

“We’re going to look at those businesses like we look at all businesses and assets and make sure they’re returning the appropriate return on capital,” Chief Financial Officer Rob Woseth told investors Tuesday. “With that said, we will invest where we’re strong. Both Cub and Hornbacher’s are leading banners in their markets, and we’ll continue to invest in those markets.”

The Shoppers grocery chain didn’t get a shout-out, so if Supervalu wants to sell another grocery chain – you can take a good guess which one it will be looking at.

In the meantime, below is the list of the Shop ‘n Save stores that are now for sale. If your store is not on the list, you can continue Shopping n’ Saving to your heart’s content. If your store is on the list, you could soon be Shopping n’ Saving somewhere else:

STORES TO BE SOLD TO SCHNUCKS:

STORES TO BE SOLD TO GIANT/MARTIN’S:

STORES TO BE CLOSED:

STORES STILL AVAILABLE FOR SALE: