BI-LO, RED FOOD COMPLETE CONSOLIDATION OF PERSONNEL

MAULDIN, S.C. -- Bi-Lo here has completed the personnel consolidation of Red Food Stores, Chattanooga, with the relocation of 14 administrative support employees to its headquarters here and the elimination of about 80 positions in Chattanooga.

All Red Food's store operations and distribution functions continue to be run out of the Chattanooga facility, and there are no changes contemplated in that arrangement, Marsh Collins, Bi-Lo's president and chief executive officer, told SN.

Bi-Lo and Red Food are divisions of Netherlands-based Ahold Co., which acquired Red Food from Promodes, a French retailer, in May and placed control of the chain under Bi-Lo. Red Food operates 55 stores in Tennessee and Georgia; Bi-Lo operates 195 stores in South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia.

Most of the 14 employees that transferred to Bi-Lo from Chattanooga work in merchandising and procurement, Preston said. Another 12 Red Food employees in the administrative support area had been offered jobs here, but they declined to move from Chattanooga, he noted.

Their positions, along with approximately 70 other clerical and management positions, were eliminated because of duplication of effort, and they were given out-placement counseling and a severance package, Preston said.

Four Bi-Lo executives were reassigned to Chattanooga, Preston noted, all to new positions in areas ranging from perishables to bakery to loss prevention.

According to Collins, all 55 Red Food stores that were acquired remain in operation. "We have no plans to close any stores -- we bought that business to grow it," he said.

As disclosed at the time of the acquisition, Ahold plans to spend at least $45 million on capital improvements over the next three years, "mostly targeted for new and replacement stores," Collins pointed out. "And we're having no problems finding opportunities to spend that money."