Icon (Close Menu)

Logout

Kroger Closes Stores, Edwards to Prevent New Food Desert

4 min read

Kroger Co.’s decision to close five stores in Arkansas would have left two more towns with no full-service grocery stores, but the Edwards grocery store chain is coming to the rescue in Brinkley. 

Citing “poor performance and struggling sales” even amid the pandemic as the cause for all of the closures, Kroger’s Delta Division shuttered its Brinkley store at 1421 Pinecrest St. on May 29 after not renewing its lease.

GES Inc. of Marianna, the parent company of Edwards Food Giant and Edwards Cash Saver grocery stores, was Kroger’s landlord in Brinkley and planned to reopen the space as an Edwards Food Giant at 9 a.m. Saturday.

The new store will reopen even though renovations will not be complete, because “this is a food desert right now,” Special Projects Manager Steve Edwards Jr. told Arkansas Business Tuesday morning. A food desert refers to an area with limited or no access to affordable fresh produce and protein. 

Another food desert in the making is England (Lonoke County). Kroger plans to close its store at 301 Pine Bluff Hwy. on July 31. The nearest store offering fresh produce and protein is approximately 25 miles away. Arkansas Business has called the mayor’s office and will update this story.

Asked whether GES would consider moving into other markets that Kroger has abandoned, Edwards said, “It’s definitely something to look into.” But the situation in Brinkley, where GES already owned the retail space, was unique, he stressed.

Kroger closed its store at 1601 E. Race Ave. in Searcy on May 1 and announced Monday that it would close its stores at 1626 E. Harding St. in Morrilton and 305 Whitehead Drive in DeWitt (Arkansas County) on July 17.

No ‘One-Size Solution’

For the past two weeks, the only source of groceries in Brinkley has been the limited selection at Dollar General, which Edwards said was “swamped.” He said residents are also driving to Forrest City (25 miles) and Marianna (31 miles), cities where GES has stores, and to Clarendon (16 miles) or McCrory (33 miles).

Arkansas is among the worst states in the country when it comes to having food deserts, said Kathy Webb, executive director of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance. 

“Research has shown that people across socioeconomic lines have a desire to eat healthier, but it’s harder to access healthier food if you don’t have a grocery store, if you don’t have transportation, and just the barriers that one faces. … There’s not a one-size solution,” she said.

Webb, who also represents Ward 3 on the Little Rock Board of Directors, called lack of transportation “a gigantic problem in Arkansas.”

She said, “It could have been already a struggle to get to the grocery store in your town. How do you get to a grocery store 10 miles away or 20 miles away? And then there’s the cost of getting there; there’s the time factor of getting there.”

In addition, food deserts are not unique to rural communities. There are large neighborhoods in Little Rock that are food deserts because their residents don’t have a way to get to larger grocery stores in other neighborhoods, Webb said.

The Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance has looked at advocating for a change to zoning and business license requirements — changes cities in other states have made — to include requiring new grocery stores to offer a certain percentage of fresh food. But that effort and others were placed on a “back burner” because of the pandemic, she said. 

Other solutions being explored include legislation that incentivizes chains to open or retain grocery stores to prevent food deserts and promoting a nonprofit grocery store model. 

In addition, Webb cited a federal program that was piloted during the pandemic. It delivered a week’s worth of meals to families in need. She said U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Arkansas, recently introduced a bill that would expand federal summer meal programs for children who qualify for free or reduced meals during the school year. 

‘Ripple Effect’

Residents of Searcy, Morrilton and DeWitt have access to other fresh food buying options even without Kroger, but all the cities will be affected by the loss of jobs associated with the stores.

“That’s a lot of people who spend money in that community and store and then they’re spending money at the hardware store, or at the gas station, or at some other store, so it has that ripple effect on all those other stores,” Webb said. 

The DeWitt store, one of the Kroger Delta Division’s smallest at 8,050 SF, employs 29 people in a city of just under 3,000. Mayor Jimmy Black is concerned about the job losses there.

He said the city is working to convince the chain to reconsider closing the store and will market the location immediately if that doesn’t pan out. “It’s been here a long time. And the employees have been there a long time. They all know who our families are and remember our kids … We really, really, really hate it,” Black said. 

The DeWitt, Morrilton and England stores employ a total of 108 employees. Victor Smith, president of Kroger’s Delta Division, said in a news release that the company is working to find the stores’ employees positions at other locations. “Helping our associates through this transition is a top priority,” he said.

GES went through a normal hiring process with the former Kroger employees in Brinkley and hired about half of them, Edwards said. As of Tuesday, a total of about 50 people had been hired — enough to get the store open. Then Edwards will assess whether others are needed, he said.

Send this to a friend