Signs of change for Clemens shoppers

0 Comments | Philadelphia Inquirer, The, October, 2006 | by Harold Brubaker

As Giant Food Stores begins converting Clemens Markets in suburban Philadelphia today to its banner, Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. may be close to buying six Clemens locations for its Super Fresh chain. "I've been in talks with Super Fresh. They tell me they intend to acquire these six Clemens stores," Wendell Young IV, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 in Philadelphia, said yesterday.

The Clemens stores that may go to Super Fresh - in Center Square, Lansdale, New Hope, Souderton and Trappe - were not part of Giant's Clemens purchase announced last month because of antitrust concerns. Giant's supplier, C&S Wholesale Grocers Inc., of Keene, N.H., bought the stores with the intention of selling them to another of its customers, so the Giant deal...