One store owner whose grocery is on the front lines of the battle for shoppers’ dollars said Friday he hopes to capture the business of Cub Foods customers.
“I hate to see an independent business go out,” said Robert Bernhard Jr., owner of Dot’s Bellbrook Market about two miles from the Cub Foods in the Sugarcreek Plaza that is scheduled to shut down this fall. “After we reopened Dot’s in 1984, Cub came in and became our first major competition. But I hope to pick up some of their ex-customers.”
Lofino officials did not return calls seeking comment Thursday or Friday. But in a bulletin sent to employees via email Thursday, the company cited “competitive challenges in the retail grocery industry” as a reason for the closings. “The company has incurred severe financial losses over the last several years,” the bulletin said.
Nate Filler, president of the Ohio Grocers Association, said he is not seeing any sort of store-closing trend elsewhere in the state, and he believes the two Cub Foods stores “are probably victims of ultra-competition” in the Dayton region. Developments that have amped up the intensity of competition among the Miami Valley’s grocers, especially — but not exclusively — in southern Montgomery County, include:
• Target stores throughout the Dayton area earlier this year expanded their grocery departments and recently launched an aggressive advertising campaign to tout the 10,000-square-feet grocery sections that now include fresh produce, packaged meats, frozen foods and dry goods.
• Kroger opened the largest Kroger Marketplace store ever in south Centerville last year, and a few months later announced it will build another new store five miles away in the Austin Landing development in Miami Twp.
• Wal-Mart, already the largest grocery retailer by sales in the U.S., announced earlier this year that it will lower grocery prices by $1 billion this year as a way to attract more customers to its stores.
Those national chains are competing fiercely against other national and regional chains such as Meijer, Aldi, Trader Joe’s and Earth Fare and against local independents such as Dorothy Lane Market and Dot’s Markets in southern Montgomery County.
Sugarcreek Twp. Administrator Barry Tiffany said Friday he was saddened to learn of the upcoming closing.
“Cub Foods was one of the first businesses to open on Wilmington Pike, and it was definitely one of the reasons we’ve had the growth that we’ve had there,” Tiffany said. He noted that the Lofino family owns the shopping center that houses the Cub Foods store, and, “I’m sure we’re going to work real hard with them to find somebody to take that space.”
The Lofino family also owns the shopping center that houses the Springboro Pike Cub Foods, according to Assistant Miami Twp. Administrator Greg Rogers, who said Friday that township officials “will help in any way we can” to attract a new tenant for the soon-to-be vacated space.
A total of 63 employees at the Miami Twp. store and 58 at the Sugarcreek Twp. store will be affected by the closings. In addition, nine employees of Lofino Food Stores’ support center in Beavercreek will lose their jobs, the bulletin said.
A Cub Foods store in Trotwood that is also owned by Lofino Food Stores will remain open, and the Lofino’s Marketplace in Beavercreek and three Dayton-area Save-A-Lot stores owned by Lofino will not be affected, according to the bulletin.
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