The Sweetbay name is about to disappear from the grocery store scene in the Bay area.
Bi-Lo Holdings, parent company of Winn-Dixie and soon-to-be owner of Tampa-based Sweetbay Supermarkets, announced Tuesday it will retire the Sweetbay brand. The Sweetbay stores that haven't been closed will become Winn-Dixie stores in the first quarter of next year.
The shift began in May, when Jacksonville-based Bi-Lo said it planned to buy Sweetbay and two other grocery chains from their Belgian owner, Delhaize Group, for $265 million.
The deal called for Bi-Lo to acquire 72 Sweetbay sores and the leases to 10 struggling Sweetbay stores that were closed earlier this year. Also included were 72 Harveys stores and 11 Reid's stores. The deal is expected to close in early 2014.
Bi-Lo hadn't announced its intentions for any of the stores until Tuesday, when it said the majority of Harveys stores will keep their name, Reid's stores will rebranded as Bi-Lo stores and Sweetbays will convert to Winn-Dixie.
"The transitioning of Sweetbay and Reid's stores to Winn-Dixie and BI-Lo banners respectively is to reduce overlapping footprints," Bi-Lo said in a news release. "There is little overlap between BI-Lo, Winn-Dixie and Harveys stores. Through this transaction, we will be able to provide our great products at a great value to a broader base of customers."
Sweetbay has been a major player in the Bay area since 2004, when Kash n' Karry changed its name to Sweetbay with plans to go more upscale and take on Publix. Kash n' Karry was founded by an Italian immigrant in the early 1960s as a no-frills discount market.
But Sweetbay couldn't quite find a niche between customer-service oriented Publix and steeply discounted Walmart. In January, Sweetbay said it was closing 33 under-performing stores in Florida, including 22 in the Bay area.
Bi-Lo said that pending regulatory review, it will keep all store-level employees in the Sweetbay stores being acquired and operated.