SmartCo Foods to Close Five Colorado Stores

Smart & Final-owned SmartCo Foods plans to close all five of its Colorado stores over the next month due to disappointing sales that fell below the company’s expectations.

“Despite our best efforts, the level of sales achieved in the SmartCo Foods stores after several months did not meet our goals and is not sufficient to sustain continued operations,” said Dave Hirz, president of Smart & Final Stores LLC. “We are grateful to all our associates who helped open and operate our stores, and are committed to doing all we can to support them through this difficult time.”

SmartCo Foods was developed as a new value-focused grocery store for the Denver area, with the goal of blending the best features of a local supermarket, warehouse club store, and farmer’s market in one, convenient location.

This Wednesday, all five SmartCo Foods stores will begin store closing sales that company executives expect to last approximately four weeks. According to Hirz, the closing sales will offer shoppers extreme values in time for the holidays.

All SmartCo Foods employees will be offered severance packages at the conclusion of their store closing employment. Smart & Final encourages all associates willing to relocate to open positions in its other western states to apply for available positions.

“While we regret having to close these stores and the impact this will have on our Colorado employees and customers, we remain committed to the SmartCo Foods concept and will open stores under the SmartCo Foods banner in other markets where we believe the concept will be successful,” said Hirz. “The first of these will open later this week in Lake Forest, Calif.”

SmartCo Foods opened five Colorado stores in the summer of 2010. Its parent company, privately-owned, Los Angeles-based Smart & Final operates over 280 stores under the Smart & Final, Cash & Carry Smart Foodservice, Henry’s Farmers Market, and Sun Harvest Markets banners.