Genuardi's Closer to Becoming Giant

The Federal Trade Commission OK’d the proposed acquisition of 15 supermarkets by Giant Food Stores from Genuardi’s Family Markets, a subsidiary of Safeway Inc., in the greater Philadelphia area.

Giant Food Stores, a Carlisle, Pa.-based company, entered into an agreement to purchase 16 Philadelphia-area Genuardi’s stores for $106 million in January.

However, according to a June 15 Giant press release, one of those stores, the Genuardi’s in Newtown, must be sold to an unrelated third party — it will be purchased by Newtown Market, LLC and will be operated as a McCaffrey’s supermarket. [Read more from the FTC website.]

Included in the purchase are the Genuardi’s in Roslyn and the Genuardi’s in Huntingdon Valley.

According to the press release, "Giant is working with Safeway to begin the store transition process." The dates for each store conversion will be announced later.

Giant Public Relations Manager Chris Brand said in January that the conversion from Genuardi’s to Giant stores will take place over a three-week period. None of the Giant stores is in danger of being closed.

“Our plan is to take maybe five [stores] in the first week, and close them, and convert them from Genuardi’s … then five the next week,” Brand said.

According to the press release, 1,700 former Genuardi’s employees who applied with Giant were given employment. Giant will also hire about 900 additional part-time employees.

In January, Brand said there were about 1,800 Genuardi’s employees.

Currently, there are about 40 Giant stores in the Philadelphia area; 13 of those stores are in Montgomery County.