Food Lion Reopening Improved Stores

Food Lion has made what it calls “significant investments” in 178 stores in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. To support these efforts, the Salisbury, N.C.-based grocer has also hired 800 employees.

Part of Food Lion’s ongoing store rebranding initiative, the investments are based on customer feedback and aim to position the company for future success.

The stores now offer customers lower prices on 6,000 items and access to store-brand products at new lower prices, including the company’s my essentials product line. Food Lion has also upped its produce offering under the “Fresh From the Field” initiative, which features better quality, enhanced freshness and expanded variety, and further offers double-your-money-back guarantee on produce. Additionally, the stores’ shopping experience has been streamlined through such improvements as a faster checkout process.

To mark the store relaunches, Food Lion is holding grand-reopening festivities at all 178 locations, through Saturday, May 18. The first 50 customers at each store will receive a bag of free groceries. The company also plans to kick off a week of giving by donating fresh produce and store-brand products to local food banks. By the end of 2013, Food Lion is poised to contribute more than 245,000 pounds of food in these markets.

So far, more than 800 Food Lion locations have been upgraded, accounting for nearly 80 percent of the chain’s store base. The company relaunched 167 stores in the Raleigh and Fayetteville, N.C., markets in May 2011; 268 stores in March 2012 in Virginia, West Virginia and the outer banks of North Carolina; and 269 stores in its hometown markets of Salisbury and Charlotte, N.C., in July 2012.

Food Lion, a company of Delhaize America, the U.S. division of Brussels-based Delhaize Group, operates more than 1,100 supermarkets in 10 Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic states, and employs about 57,000 associates.