Food Lion Buys Handful of Winn-Dixie Stores

Salisbury, N.C., Supermarket chain Food Lion is spending an undisclosed sum in cash to acquire 10 stores from Winn-Dixie in North Carolina and Virginia. The acquisition will fill in and reinforce the retailer’s presence in its current geographic footprint. The stores are located in Dunn, Elizabeth City, Elizabethtown and Havelock, N.C., and Clarksville, Danville, Farmville, Martinsville, South Hill and Stanleytown, Va.

Food Lion plans to quickly rebrand five of the stores in Virginia with only a few-days gap in store operations. Also, the store in Elizabethtown will be remodeled significantly to replace Food Lion’s current location there. It says it will conduct further analysis of the remaining locations to better determine how the stores fit in its growth plans. Food Lion, which operates more than 1,200 stores in 11 Southeastern and mid-Atlantic states, is a division of Delhaize America, which also operates the Hannaford Bros. and Kash ’n Karry grocers.