Stop & Shop will close 32 “underperforming” stores, including four on Long Island, by early November, but the grocery chain says no workers will be laid off.
The closed Long Island locations are located in Greenville, at 130 Whitley Plaza; Corm, at 294 Middle Country Road; Hempstead, at 132 Fulton Avenue; and East Meadow, at 2525 Hempstead Tbc.
The Quincy, Massachusetts-based retailer said the 32 stores that will close, located in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island, will close on or before Nov. 2.
“Stop & Shop is proud of the deep roots and community relationships we have built as a local grocer for more than 100 years, and we remain committed to nourishing our associates, customers and communities,” said Gordon Reed, president of Stop & Shop, in a statement. “As we announced in May, Stop & Shop evaluated its overall store portfolio and made the difficult decision to close underperforming stores to create a healthy foundation for future growth for our brand.”
Stop & Shop said no employees will be laid off because of the store closures.
“They will be given the opportunity to move to other nearby stores,” said Daniel Wolk, a spokesman for Stop & Shop.
Local unions, which began meeting with affected employees on Friday, said they were working to ensure Stop & Shop kept its promise that workers would not lose their jobs.
“These are the same people who helped them get through the pandemic and we want to make sure they are still treated as essential. That’s the first and foremost thing. The thing we’ve learned from COVID is how important these jobs are,” said Allie Waye, secretary-treasurer of the Woodbury-based Food and Commercial Workers International Union.
Stop & Shop declined to say how many employees will work in the stores that will close. But local unions, which represent all store employees except managers, offered some insight.
The local union members represent a total of about 420 workers at the four stores that will close on Long Island. Here’s a breakdown:
- Local 1500 of the UFCW represents 258 employees who work as cashiers and stockers, as well as in the produce, dairy, frozen, bakery, accounting, price integrity and maintenance departments at Stop & Shop stores in Corum, Greenville and Hempstead, Wadi said.
- About 100 people work in those roles, as well as in the prepared foods department, at the East Meadow store represented by UFCW Local 338 in Mineola, said Nikki Kateman, director of policy and communications.
- UFCW Local 342 also represents about 60 meat, seafood and deli workers at the Coram, Greenville and Hempstead stores, and just meat and seafood workers at the East Meadow store, said Kelly Lambeau, director of activities and communications for the local union on Staten Island.
With the 32 store closures, Stop & Shop will be left with 359 stores in five states: 81 in Connecticut, 115 in Massachusetts, 47 in New Jersey, 91 in New York and 25 in Rhode Island.
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Stop & Shop, owned by Dutch company Ahold Delhaize, is the largest grocery store on Long Island.
Its 50 stores on the island represent 31.6 percent of the market share, according to Food Trade News, a Columbia, Maryland-based publication.
Stop & Shop, once dominant in New England, came to the metropolitan area in the mid-1990s by acquiring several regional chains, said Jeff Metzger, publisher of Food Trade News.
But Stop & Shop is a traditional supermarket retailer and faces increasing competition from specialty grocers and discounters, he said.
On Long Island, that includes upscale grocer Whole Foods Market, which has six stores, three of which have opened since 2019. Whole Foods plans to open a store in Huntington Station on Wednesday and another in Holbrook in 2025.
German discount grocery chain Aldi has 13 stores on Long Island, including four that opened in the past two years, and plans to open three stores in Central Islip, East Northport and Medford this year, and two in Bethpage and Lake Ronkonkoma in 2025.
Another German discounter, Lidl, which now has 24 stores on Long Island, entered the local market in 2019, when the company’s American arm completed the purchase of Bethpage-based Best Market, which has 27 stores in New Jersey and New York, including all 24 on the island.
“So, there’s a lot more. [grocery] “The selection is more diverse and there’s a lot of overstocking in general,” said Metzger, who also said Stop & Shop has been too slow to update its stores. “There’s a lot less loyalty from shoppers and more online shopping.”
Dissatisfied with Stop & Shop’s performance, Ahold began working on an improvement plan that included redesigning stores and adjusting the size of its store portfolio. By May, more than half of the stores had been redesigned, “and those stores are performing well,” Franz Mueller, Ahold’s president and CEO, told analysts during an earnings call on May 8.
“We want to grow our market share in a similar way to Stop & Shop. We have a number of strategies in this regard. Private label is one of them, as well as competitive pricing and loyalty offers,” he said.
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