Supervalu expands Western Beef partnership

Western Beef and Supervalu Inc have announced an expansion of their partnership to include an additional 22 of Western Beef’s conventional stores and five of its limited-assortment stores in New York and New Jersey.

Supervalu currently supplies Western Beef’s two stores in Florida; a third Florida store is slated to open soon. This partnership also marks the expansion of Supervalu in the New York market. The company will be the primary grocery supplier for Western Beef beginning in January 2012.

“We already partner with Supervalu in our Florida stores and are looking forward to expanding that relationship to all of our stores,” said Peter Castellana III, president of Western Beef. “We both believe in serving our customers better than anyone else in the industry, and we look forward to taking advantage of the variety of products and services that Supervalu provides.”

Supervalu’s Lancaster PA distribution center will supply the 27 Western Beef stores in New York and New Jersey. The two Florida stores will continue to be supplied by Supervalu’s Southeast region, as will the new Florida store opening soon.

Kevin Kemp, president of Supervalu’s Eastern region, said, “For decades, Western Beef has done an excellent job of serving customers in its local markets. With this expanded partnership, Western Beef will be able to increase the variety of products offered in their Northeast stores while taking advantage of a wide array of support services that we offer.”

Headquartered on an 11-acre facility in New York City, Western Beef operates its own meat, grocery, and produce warehouses. It consists of 29 high-volume warehouse style supermarkets, operating in New York, New Jersey, and Florida.

With annual sales of around $37 billion, Supervalu serves customers across the United States through a network of roughly 4,300 stores composed of 1,106 traditional retail stores, including 800 in-store pharmacies; 1,294 hard-discount stores, of which 915 are operated by licensee owners; and 1,900 independent stores serviced primarily by the company’s traditional food distribution business. The company has about 135,000 employees.

For more information, visit www.supervalu.com.