DW Unloads Two Pharmacies

GRAND RAPIDS — D&W Food Centers Inc. announced today it will sell two of its pharmacies to CVS in order to focus more tightly on its core operations.

The sale will involve the pharmacies in the D&W stores at

5270 Eastern Ave. SE

and

1625 Leonard St. NW

The change will entail transferring customer prescription services Wednesday to nearby CVS stores:

5225 Eastern Ave. SE

, and at

1155 Fuller Ave. NW

respectively.

The firm said it is selling the pharmacies as part of its strategic plan to strengthen its “focus on core markets and concepts and better respond to customer demands for products and services.”

D&W’s vice president for marketing, Ron Cox, said in a prepared statement, “We are continuing the work of reshaping our operations to focus on core markets and remain responsive to what our customers want.”

His statement said signs at the two affected pharmacies will notify customers of the change. D&W said employees whom the sale impacts will have a chance to enter other positions within the company.

D&W said it was selling the 3-year-old pharmacy at the

Eastern Avenue

store because customers there didn’t exhibit a strong demand for in-store pharmacy services.

The Beckwith Pharmacy in the

Leonard Street

store opened when that D&W store itself opened. When D&W changed that store to its current Save-A-Lot format, it moved the pharmacy to its adjacent free-standing site in the Beckwith Plaze.

“That arrangement is no longer consistent with D&W’s long-term strategic plans,” the firm announced. It indicated the CVS Pharmacy at just west of the current store henceforth will serve Beckwith Pharmacy customers.

D&W, now in its 61^st year of operation, is a locally-owned food retailer employing about 2,300 people in 21 stores. It also operates a central transportation center and a central kitchen and catering facility.