Harris Teeter owner Kroger will sell 10 D.C.-area Harris Teeter stores to C & Wholesale Grocers, owner of the storied Piggly Wiggly grocery store chain.
The move is part of a larger plan to divest hundreds of stores in order to win regulatory approval of Kroger’s planned $24.6 billion merger with Albertsons. But whether that means a return of the Piggly Wiggly brand to the D.C. market remains to be seen.
Keene, New Hampshire-based C & Wholesale owns hundreds of Piggly Wiggly and Grand Union supermarkets, as well as wholesale operations and private-label store brands.
Albertsons and Kroger will sell a combined 413 stores, as well as distribution centers in 17 states and the District for a total of $1.9 billion.
Albertsons, whose foothold in the D.C. market is its ownership of the Safeway grocery store chain, also owns Balducci’s Food Lovers Market, which has three stores in the D.C. area.
The list of stores being sold does not include exact locations, but does list 10 Harris Teeter stores flagged as the D.C., Maryland and Virginia market. Harris Teeter has about two dozen stores in the D.C. area.
Federal regulators have not weighed in on the proposed merger, though consumer and labor groups have raised concerns about it harming competition. Kroger has said it is committed to investing $1 billion in improving wages and benefits for employees.
If approved, the combined company would have almost 5,000 stores, before those the two companies agree to sell. Kroger expects the merger to win FTC approval and close in early-2024.
Piggly Wiggly’s first store opened in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1916. It is credited with being the first grocer to allow customers to walk through its stores and choose their own items. Prior to that, the common grocery shopping practice involved giving a list to store employees, who would retrieve items for them.
It helped popularize the grocery shopping cart.
At one point, Piggly Wiggly had dozens of stores in the D.C. area.
Thomas Good, one-time owner of Piggly Wiggly stores in Washington who died in 1975, owned a family mansion in D.C.’s Spring Valley neighborhood he purchased in 1929. The 8,600-square-foot, 7-bedroom home on Rockwood Parkway in Northwest D.C. sold this month for $7.3 million.
