If you haven't been impacted by the recent retail apocalypse, consider yourself lucky. Over the last few years, companies have been hit hard by a number of challenges: the COVID pandemic, supply chain issues, labor shortages, and rising inflation. As a result, even some of the most established retailers like Walmart and CVS have had to close locations around the U.S. And now, a popular grocery store chain is gearing up to shutter some of its stores nationwide. Read on to find out which grocer is closing locations starting next month.
READ THIS NEXT: This Popular Retail Chain Is Closing All of Its Stores as of Sept. 30.
Several grocery chains have already closed stores this year.
iStockGrocery stores have not been spared by the challenges across the retail space. Back in May, six Whole Foods Market stores across the U.S. were closed by Amazon, which had purchased the upscale supermarket chain in 2017. The company told Bloomberg that the closures were part of a regular performance and growth potential evaluation of individual stores in order "to position Whole Foods Market for long-term success." Shortly after that, three Sprouts Farmers Market locations were shuttered in June.
And earlier this month, Lidl confirmed it would soon be closing several "underperforming" locations, starting July 31. As it turns out, the grocery chain closures are far from over.
Now another grocer is getting ready to shutter locations.
iStockKroger, a Cincinnati-based grocery company that operates stores throughout the U.S., will be closing at least two locations in the coming weeks.
A Kroger in Little Rock, Arkansas, is one of the locations being shuttered, local Fox-affiliate KLRT recently reported on July 25. The other store is a Kroger in Plano, Texas, according to Community Impact, a chain of monthly newspapers servicing cities in Texas and Arizona. The Plano Kroger does not have a closing date yet, but company officials told KLRT that the Little Rock Kroger will officially close on Aug. 13.
The two Kroger locations are closing for different reasons.
ShutterstockThe two Kroger closures may not be indicative of a major nationwide trend. In fact, the locations are getting shuttered for different reasons. According to the company, "significant profit loss" is responsible for the decision to close the Little Rock Kroger. "This store has lost significant profit for many years and if left open, the losses are projected to get even worse going forward," employee Sheleah Harris told KLRT.
The Plano closure, on the other hand, was originally announced in mid-April. At the time, The Dallas Morning News reported that the grocer is planning to close its store on Coit Road in Plano as part of a "major relocation" with plans to open another location in the same area to be run by the same store staff.
But the company has recently closed other stores for financial reasons.
ShutterstockThe Little Rock Kroger is not the only store the company has closed in the last year for financial reasons. Back in March, a Kroger in Campbellsville, Kentucky, was shut down because it had been unprofitable for years, and "financial projections [showed] that the store would suffer even greater losses in the future," company spokesperson Erin Grant told local Fox-affiliate WDRB at the time. Just two months later, a Kroger in Columbus, Ohio, was shuttered over lost revenue, local CBS-affiliate WBNS reported in May.
That same month a year prior, the Kroger Company, which owns a number of other grocery chains in addition to its namesake chain, also closed several stores in Los Angeles after the city voted in favor of a $5-per-hour hazard pay mandate for grocery workers. The company closed two Ralphs stores, and one Food 4 Less location on May 15, claiming the new hero pay law made it "financially unsustainable to continue operating underperforming locations," according to LAist.
