Food Lion to close stores in Lynchburg, Appomattox

Two area Food Lion stores, in Lynchburg and Appomattox, will close by Feb. 10. Right now, 70 to 80 people are expected to lose their jobs, according to Food Lion.

The Lynchburg store is located on Bedford Avenue, near Rivermont Avenue, and has 46 employees. It opened in 1993. The Appomattox Food Lion is located in the History Junction shopping center on U.S. 460. The number of employees there was unavailable Thursday, but a Food Lion spokesperson said stores typically employee 35-40 workers.

The closures, announced Thursday, mark a move by parent company Delhaize America to “strengthen its U.S. portfolio,” according to a corporate news release. The stores are among 126 Bloom, Family Dollar and Food Lion stores across the South slated for closure; another 65 Bloom and Family Dollar stores will be converted into Food Lion markets and a distribution center in Tennessee will closed. Once the changes are complete, Delhaize will have more than 1,000 Food Lion stores in 10 states.

Food Lion has six stores and about 260 employees in Lynchburg.

The move leaves almost 5,000 employees without a job company-wide.

Delhaize America said in a release it will “work with government officials to assist with transition support” and encouraged employees to apply for other jobs within the company.

Eligible employees will receive severance pay.

Tenisha Waldo, a spokeswoman for Food Lion, said the two local stores are closing because “we believe that these stores do not meet our standards for profitability, which includes a number of factors.” She did not elaborate.

Local officials were both surprised and disappointed by the announcement.

Residents are “losing a choice,” said Appomattox County Director of Economic Development Jeff Taylor. This is the second full-service grocery store Appomattox to close in as many years. Wilbun’s Supermarket, a family-owned store that served the community for 75 years, shut its doors in 2010. With the closure of Food Lion, the area will have one Walmart and one Kroger.

In Lynchburg, the closing of the Bedford Avenue store means patrons will have to travel further to find another grocery store. The next closest full-service grocery stores in the area are the Kroger on Boonsboro Road and the Food Lion on Memorial Avenue.

Each is about 2.5 miles away.

Losing the Bedford Avenue store creates what is known as a “food desert” in that area of town, said Brian Gleason, Lynchburg’s economic development coordinator. People who live in food deserts don’t have easy access to the affordable food they need to maintain a healthy life.

“When neighborhoods don’t have full-service grocery stores, it actually does impact things like the nutrition of the community and the per-item cost of food,” said Gleason. Small corner markets cannot offer a variety of produce or healthy options, and because of their limited buying power, they typically charge higher prices than full-service grocery stores.

Travelling further to access food costs residents more time and money, said Gleason.

Gleason said the city will begin working with commercial real estate agents to aggressively market the site to a new anchor store. Ideally, he hopes to attract another full-service grocery store.