Delhaize management has announced a third series of stores that will be transferred to independent operators. This time it concerns nineteen stores, which brings the count to 51 of the 128 stores.
With the announcement of these additional 19 supermarkets, 40 percent of Delhaize’s own supermarkets already have an independent buyer. This time it concerns 19 new acquirers, nine of whom already operate one or more other Delhaize stores, five acquirers who are former Delhaize employees and five acquirers who are joining the Delhaize family for the first time. One of the new buyers is Kim Van Oncen, who, together with her brother, already operates a Delhaize store in Putte-Kapellen and is currently building a store in Essen. They are now also taking over the store in Ekeren.
The 18 other stores that will have a new buyer are the stores in Blankenberge, Wondelgem, Ghent (Watersports), Aalst, Oudenaarde, Alsemberg, Boechout, Kraainem, Wezenbeek, Geel, Jette Théodor and Jette Ch. Woeste, Ixelles (Molière), Louvain La Neuve, Sambreville (Falisolle), Motigny, and Liège (Burenville).
Strike
The staff of the Delhaize Théodor store in Jette have stopped working after the management announced that an independent buyer has been found for the store. This is what Delhaize spokeswoman Ine Tassignon says.
The store in Montigny, Hainaut, also went on strike on Monday morning, the spokeswoman said. The store is now open again. That branch was also on the list of acquired stores.
10 weeks
The opening of this new list of 19 supermarkets as independent Delhaize supermarkets is planned from December 2023 to March 2024. “A successful transition from a self-managed supermarket to an affiliated Delhaize store takes an average of 10 weeks. That is the time needed to get everything in order in terms of administration, IT and technology,” the supermarket chain said in a press release.
At the beginning of March, Delhaize announced that it wanted to spin off its 128 stores under its own management. The decision was met with a lot of protest from the more than 9,000 employees in the stores, and many branches sometimes remained closed for weeks. In addition to the 128 stores under its own management, the supermarket group has 636 independent affiliated stores.
Delhaize plans new announcements at regular intervals in the coming months about additional supermarkets that will make the transition to independent Delhaize supermarkets.
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