C&S to supply BI-LO, Winn-Dixie stores

BI-LO Holding, parent company of BI-LO and Winn-Dixie grocery stores, has announced a long-term agreement under which Keene NH-based C&S Wholesale Grocers Inc will provide warehouse, transportation, and most procurement services for all 480 Winn-Dixie stores and continue providing services to all 206 BI-LO stores.

“We believe this deal will allow us to leverage the experience and buying power of C&S so that we can continue to reinvest in our company and focus on selling great products at a good value to our customers,” said Randall Onstead, president and chief executive officer of BI-LO Holding.

By the end of 2013, Winn-Dixie’s six distribution centers—located in Baldwin, Jacksonville, Miami, and Orlando FL; Montgomery AL; and Hammond LA—and the functions that support them, will be transitioned. C&S intends to operate the facilities as they are, with minimal change to existing associates or their wages and benefits. As each distribution center is transitioned over to C&S, associates of the distribution centers will become C&S employees.

C&S has provided procurement, warehouse, and transportation services for BI-LO LLC since 2005. The new agreement covers both the BI-LO and Winn-Dixie banners across the companywide network of nearly 700 stores.

BI-LO Holding is the ninth-largest traditional supermarket chain in the United States. The company employs nearly 60,000 associates at 686 grocery stores and 484 in-store pharmacies throughout the eight southeastern states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. For more information, visit www.bi-lo.com and www.winn-dixie.com.

The largest food wholesaler and, according to Forbes magazine, the 10th-largest privately held company in the United States, C&S distributes food to supermarkets, retail stores and military bases nationwide. It serves about 4,000 stores from more than 50 locations in 12 states.