NEWS ROUNDUP 1994-03-21 (2)

Fleming to Close Joplin Center

os. here will close its Joplin, Mo., distribution center and transfer the business to larger facilities here and in Kansas City, Kan.

The process of moving customers to the larger facilities begins May 9, Fleming said.

Jerry Charrlin, president of the Joplin division, said the facility is closing as part of Fleming's plan to move to larger and more efficient distribution facilities.

"Careful studies indicated that our customers could be better served by the Kansas City and Oklahoma City divisions," he said. Joplin supplies 82 retail stores in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri, including many IGA stores.

Fleming is expanding its Kansas City food distribution center to more than 850,000 square feet.

Pallet-Driven Chain Is Planned

NORTH JACKSON, Ohio -- Food Pallet, a start-up supermarket company, expects to open 12 pallet-driven supermarkets in the Ohio area within the next six months, Jerry Hoffman, president, said in a letter to prospective vendors.

The 12 units will each carry 1,000 stockkeeping units of private-label products merchandised in display-ready form on stainless-steel pallets that will be shipped by vendors either to the stores or to a cross-docking operation, Hoffman said. The cross-docking operation will be set up at the former Peter J. Schmitt warehouse here, Hoffman said.

Hoffman, who couldn't be reached for comment, had disclosed plans in mid-1992 to open 12 stores -- called Food Trust -- within 150 miles of St. Louis by the summer of 1993. However, those stores never opened.

Pathmark to Shut Three Stores

WOODBRIDGE, N.J. -- Pathmark Stores here will close three units in the New Haven, Conn., area April 23.

The company is "looking at different scenarios" as it decides what to do with the sites once they have been vacated, John K. Shipton, senior vice president of public affairs and marketing, told SN. A decision will be made by the time the stores close next month.

One Pathmark previously closed in Danbury, Conn., has been converted to a super-drug format called Danbury Super Drug. Shipton declined to say whether any other units might be converted to that or any other alternative format.

The three stores slated for closing -- in East Haven, Hamden and Orange -- are all in the 40,000-square-foot range. "Our model is now a 65,000-square-foot store, and those three units are not economically viable and couldn't be expanded," he said.

Foodarama Considers Asset Sale

FREEHOLD, N.J. -- Foodarama Supermarkets here is considering the sale of productive and unproductive assets to raise capital to pay down its $35.2 million debt, Joseph Saker, president of the 21-unit ShopRite chain, told SN.

According to Saker, productive assets include retail stores, while unproductive assets include buildings and developments it owns.

In addition, as previously reported, the company is attempting to devise a business plan to present to its major lenders to overcome the technical default it has fallen into.

Foodarama plans to submit that plan in May to its major lenders, led by Chase Manhattan Bank.

Albrecht May Sell Cleveland Units

AKRON, Ohio -- Fred W. Albrecht Grocery Co. here may sell its three stores in the Cleveland market. A final decision is likely to come this summer.

Steve Albrecht, president of the 30-store chain, said the company is thinking about pulling out of Cleveland for several reasons, including the high price of land and advertising, an inability to find good sites for additional locations and the imminent entry of Meijer, Grand Rapids, Mich., into the Cleveland market.

"Competition doesn't normally scare us," Albrecht said. "But like any good business, we are evaluating our operations to determine whether we might be better off withdrawing from the Cleveland market and focusing on our core market of Akron-Canton."