Southern Family Market for sale
By Bonnie Edwards
Published in News on September 8, 2006 1:46 PM
The corporate office of Southern Family Market confirmed Thursday that the company's store on Wayne Memorial Drive is for sale.
The grocery chain's headquarters in Birmingham, Ala. announced last month it was going to close 13 stores in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi and completely vacate the North Carolina market.
Altogether, nine supermarkets in North Carolina were to be shut down and another eight stores in the state sold. The Goldsboro store is among those to be sold.
The ones chosen to be shut down were in Eden, Lexington, Jamestown, Greensboro , Spindale, Mooresville, High Point, Burlington and Clemmons. The other stores slated for sale were in Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Fayetteville and Mocksville.
Bill White, the company president, said he realized how the closings will affect the customers, suppliers and employees. But he said they had to act fast and streamline operations because of the competition.
"There is never a good time to do this," he said.
The Southern Family Market chain is comprised primarily of stores acquired from other chains.
In 2005, Southern Family Markets acquired 104 stores from BI-LO and several from Winn-Dixie, which was reconcentrating more on locations closer to its home base in Florida.
But by June of this year, the number of Southern Family Markets stores had dropped to 99.