Aldi said March 7 it completed the acquisition of Jacksonville-based Southeastern Grocers Inc., the parent company of the Winn-Dixie and Harveys supermarket chains.
The discount grocer said in a news release it will convert some of the 400 stores in those two chains to Aldi, beginning in the second half of 2024, but it intends for “a meaningful amount of Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarkets to continue to operate under their current banners.”
The company said it is not yet releasing details on specific stores.
The Winn-Dixie chain and its parent company have been headquartered in Jacksonville for 80 years.
Aldi, with U.S. headquarters in Batavia, Illinois, has about 2,400 U.S. stores and said the Southeastern Grocers acquisition is part of a plan to add 800 stores nationwide by 2028 through new openings and store conversions.
“With the acquisition of Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarkets, Aldi will serve even more communities in the Southeast, bringing us closer to our customers in a region where we’ve already experienced significant demand for affordable, quality groceries,” Aldi CEO Jason Hart said in the news release.
Southeastern Grocers’ 400 stores operate in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.
“As we look ahead to this next chapter in our company history, both the Aldi and SEG teams will play a critical role in driving the business forward for our future collective success,” Hart said.
Aldi said about 50 Winn-Dixie and Harveys stores will begin the conversion process in late 2024 and reopen as Aldi stores in 2025.
“As we begin this next chapter, we will continue to deliver the quality, service and value our customers have come to expect from us.” Southeastern Grocers CEO Anthony Hucker said in the news release.
Southeastern Grocers also owned a chain of 28 stores called Fresco y Más, but it sold that Hispanic grocery business separately to private investors in January.
Aldi said its expansion plans include adding about 330 additional stores in the Northeast and Midwest and entering new cities in the West, including Las Vegas.
Southeastern Grocers leases its headquarters in Prominence Office Park in Baymeadows. The news release did not talk about the plans for the facility and its employees.
Winn-Dixie traces its roots back to the 1920s when the Davis family opened a store in Miami and began expanding with other stores.
The company established its headquarters in Jacksonville in 1944 and after a series of transactions, the company was named Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. in 1955.
Winn-Dixie struggled in the early 2000s and went through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in 2005 and 2006.
After emerging from bankruptcy, Winn-Dixie merged with Bi-Lo Holdings in 2012 to form Southeastern Grocers.
Southeastern went through a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in 2018, with a group of investment funds taking control of the company.
The company filed plans for an initial public offering in 2020 but pulled the IPO off the market in January 2021, and it had been the subject of buyout rumors since then, before announcing the acquisition agreement with Aldi in August 2023.
With both companies being privately owned, terms of the merger were not announced.
Aldi provided this graphic about its expansion history and future plans:
