Customers ‘dreading’ huge change as major grocery chain shuts raft of pharmacies before Aldi merger
A HUGE grocery chain has undergone major changes ahead of it being purchased by Aldi.
Winn-Dixie is set to close all of its pharmacies as its parent company Southeastern Grocers agreed to merge with the German-budget store in 2024.
All of the locations will shutter by the end of the year which will see all customers transferred to CVS pharmacies and Walgreens.
However, customers said they are dreading the change since some have reportedly had issues in the past with these pharmacy companies.
Loyd Ealy from Florida has been a customer of Winn-Dixie pharmacies for almost a decade.
He told the Plant City Observer: “The communication with the pharmacists has been great and they have told us what they know which isn’t much."
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But speaking of his transfer to Walgreens, Ealy said: "We'll use them but the last time we did it was an issue trying to fill medication.
"We are truly concerned about this switchover and dreading it."
A spokesperson from Southeastern Grocers told the outlet: “We remain committed to protecting the health and wellness of our customers and communities until the transactions are finalized, and our pharmacy customers will be provided sufficient advance notice seven to 10 days prior to the transfer.
"We are working closely with CVS Pharmacy and Walgreens to ensure our customers’ prescriptions are handled carefully and confidently and there won’t be any delay in service.”
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The mass closures come as Aldi's 400-store purchase does not include the pharmacy side of the business.
Speaking about the deal, an Aldi spokesperson outlined the plans for Winn-Dixie grocery stores.
They said: “We’re working through the details on store conversions and will be very thoughtful around which stores we’ll convert to Aldi and which will remain as Winn-Dixie and Harvey’s Supermarket stores.
"While a significant amount of Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarket stores will convert to the Aldi format over the course of several years, a meaningful amount will continue to operate under their respective banners.
"As is typical in retail footprint planning, many factors will go into what will be a multi-year conversion process, including local market dynamics like population density and availability of other grocery options, traffic patterns and most importantly, customer need.”
Until the deal closes, the companies will continue to be independently run.
However, customers may be further impacted as CVS is in the middle of mass closures and Walgreens has also been shuttering stores.
In late 2021, CVS announced it would close roughly 300 stores per year until 2024.
This year, the pharmacy chain has closed at least a dozen stores.
One of its latest included its Brookfield, Illinois location.
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Another two locations in Texas and California were scheduled to shut down in August.
Meanwhile, Walgreens closed multiple stores in May including one in Syracuse, New York, and another in Dundalk, Maryland.