Stop & Shop will acquire King Kullen Grocery Co., a Long Island, N.Y.-based supermarket chain. The agreement includes 32 King Kullen supermarkets, five Wild by Nature stores and the use of its corporate offices in Bethpage, N.Y. The deal is expected to close in Q1 2019.
The first King Kullen opened in 1930, and The Smithsonian Institution acknowledges the retailer as America’s first supermarket. However, the retailer has struggled with competition from larger chains and online grocery services in recent years, according to Supermarket News.
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Stop & Shop currently operates 51 locations on Long Island, and has not yet revealed whether the King Kullen stores will remain open, change banners or close. Stop & Shop spokeswoman Jennifer Brogan told Supermarket News that the retailer “will evaluate the stores and make these decisions in the near future.”
The deal is the second acquisition of a Long Island supermarket chain in the past six weeks: Lidl announced its acquisition of Best Market, which operates 24 stores in the region, in November 2018. Financial terms were not released for either acquisition.
