ShopRite, Weis, Grocery Outlet add stores

It was announced last month that Village Super Market, a Wakefern member that operates 29 ShopRite supermarkets, signed a lease for a 90,000 square foot store that will anchor a new mixed-use development in Old Bridge, NJ. The store is slated to open next summer. Plans for the development include 2,000 residential units and more than 500,000 square feet of retail space.

Weis announced last month that it plans to purchase five Mars stores in Baltimore County, Maryland. When the purchase is complete (in late July, according to the announcement), Weis will have nine stores in the county. Mars currently operates 13 stores, including the five stores to be closed. The company closed four stores earlier this year.

Grocery Outlet, the California-based chain that purchased Amelia's in 2012, celebrated its 50th Pennsylvania store with its opening last month in Quakertown's Trainer's Corner Shopping Center. Sears Hardware had previously occupied the building. A Grocery Outlet employee said the company plans more stores, with an expansion goal of 80 throughout New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia.
  

Amelia's conversion to Grocery Outlet banner nearly complete

As I reported last fall (Amelia's Grocery Outlet parent...), Grocery Outlet has been in the process of converting the Amelia's banner to Grocery Outlet, which will result in a consistent name throughout the entire country. It was reported yesterday that the conversion is nearly done.

Starting tomorrow, visitors to Amelia's website will be redirected to groceryoutlet.com.

Amelia's Grocery Outlet parent to be purchased by investment firm

"Extreme-value" retailer Grocery Outlet, which operates 198 stores in the Western U.S. plus 16 Amelia's supermarkets in Pennsylvania, has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Hellman & Friedman, an investment firm in San Francisco.

Grocery Outlet's principal owner for the last five years has been Berkshire Partners, based in Boston. The chain was founded in 1946 and has been profitable ever since, according to a company representative.

The stores in Pennsylvania operating as Amelia's Grocery Outlet are in the process of converting to the Grocery Outlet banner. The Amelia's chain was purchased by Grocery Outlet in 2012.

Grocery Outlet offers branded grocery products at discount prices, with the stores mostly managed by independent operators.

Hellman & Friedman Managing Director Erik Ragatz says his company plans to move Grocery Outlet "into its next phase of growth."

Amelia's parent company could fetch $1 billion in sale

Grocery Outlet, the discount supermarket with a remarkable track record of profitability, is exploring a sale that may bring more than $1 billion, according to reports. The company's private equity owner, Berkshire Partners, LLC, has hired Barclays and Goldman Sachs to run a sale process.

Grocery Outlet, whose stores are mostly in California, Washington and Oregon, wasn't known in Pennsylvania grocery circles until late 2011 when the company purchased Amelia's. Amelia's currently operates 16 stores in Eastern PA, while Grocery Outlet has about 180 stores.

Sales for Grocery Outlet in 2013 were approximately $1.3 billion.

Redner's 6th on list of small chains and independents

Last year The Fresh Market and Grocery Outlet were the top two grocers on Supermarket News' list of Top 50 Small Chains and Independents, but their growth has lifted them off the list and on to the Top 75 list of the largest food retailers and wholesalers in the U.S. and Canada. Last year Grocery Outlet, based in Berkeley, CA, purchased Amelia's, a chain based in Southeastern PA.

Redner's Markets, seventh on last year's list, moved up to sixth due to the addition of three stores. Brown's Super Stores, a ShopRite operator that's part of the Wakefern cooperative, is 35th on this year's list.

Fareway Stores (Boone, Iowa) operates 102 stores and tops the list, while PAQ, Inc. of Stockton, CA is second.