Lucky’s Market filed for bankruptcy Monday — five days after announcing it will be closing stores nationwide.
The company filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy because it was “unable to achieve sustainable four-wall profitability,” and it had “approximately $22 million of store operating losses and approximately $100 million net loss” during the 2019 fiscal year, according to the court documents.
Lucky’s Market announced last week that it would be closing 32 stores while keeping seven locations open across five states.
Publix is currently under contract to purchase five leases from Lucky’s Market, spokeswoman Maria Brous said in a Wednesday email.
Lucky’s Market announced in a Wednesday press release it had entered into an Asset Purchase Agreement with ALDI for five leased store properties and the purchase of one owned property, totaling six properties.
All 11 stores being purchased by Publix and ALDI are in Florida. Three of those are in central Florida — two will be acquired by ALDI, and one by Publix.
Lucky’s Market has entered into an APA for all seven locations that will continue to operate, according to the release.
“While this is a difficult situation across our Company, we remain passionate and optimistic that we can continue to offer our communities access to healthful foods in this smaller footprint, preserving hundreds of jobs,” Bo Sharon, Lucky’s Market co-founder, said in the release.
The bankruptcy news comes only a few weeks after grocery retail chain and manufacturing company Kroger decided to sell its stake in Lucky’s Market.
Kroger announced its association with Lucky’s Market in April 2016 in a press release.
Kroger wrote off a $238 million loss to divest its interest in Lucky’s Market, according to Kroger’s third quarter reports released on Dec. 5, 2019.
According to the bankruptcy documents, the company operates a produce warehouse in Orlando – in addition to the 39 stores nationwide – which supplied all stores in Florida and Georgia.
