In a deal that lasted less than a year, Burris Logistics is yielding control of Albertsons’ Mid-Atlantic division’s frozen food business which supplies approximately 275 Acme and Safeway stores in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington DC.
Effective late June, C&S Wholesale Grocers, based in Keene, NH will begin to supply all of the grocery chain’s Mid-Atlantic units with mainline frozen foods, ice cream, frozen bakery and frozen commodities. C&S will supply those stores from the same 220,000 square foot Harrington, DE distribution center that Burris owns.
Sources at Albertsons told us that Burris opted out of the deal, which was signed early last summer, because the arrangement was unprofitable for the Milford, DE-based logistics company. In recent years Burris has grown in such diverse areas as foodservice distribution (Honor Foods where a new $50 million distribution center was opened earlier this year in Philadelphia), cold storage warehousing (PRW Plus which operates 16 cold storage warehouses east of the Mississippi), freight brokerage (Trinity Logistics), and customized collaborative and transparent supply chain solutions (Burris Custom). The company also supplies all of B.J’s Wholesale’s frozen and refrigerated items at its approximately 220 club stores.
It is expected that much of the current sales and warehousing Burris workforce dedicated to Albertsons (an estimated 125 people) will be employed by C&S once the transition is completed. It also marks the end of a relationship that the family-owned distributor has had with Acme that dates back to 1925 when John W. Burris and his father, Edward, recognized an opportunity to deliver freshly baked bread to Acme Markets on return trips from delivering tomatoes from the farms in lower Delaware and Maryland to markets in Philadelphia. Three more generations of Burris family leadership have followed from John E. “Jack” Burris to Bob Burris to Donnie Burris, who is currently CEO.
About 15 months ago, Albertsons announced it would move its distribution for its Safeway-Eastern division based in Lanham, MD from an Albertsons-owned warehouse in Upper Marlboro, MD to Acme’s larger and more efficient depot in Denver, PA near Lancaster. At the time, C&S was serving Safeway’s stores with frozen and Burris was supplying Acme’s approximately 160 units with frozen foods. Several months after the distribution consolidation was announced, Albertsons awarded the combined frozen business to Burris. Shortly thereafter, the two divisions also said they would be combining headquarters into Acme’s Malvern, PA facility and form a new division – Albertsons Mid-Atlantic division with a combined 275 stores and annual sales eclipsing $6 billion. Not expected to be integrated into the new supply deal at the outset are the 27 Kings and Balducci’s stores that Acme acquired at a bankruptcy auction earlier this year. However, when the chain completes the full integration of its newest purchase, those stores are expected to be added to the C&S roster possibly this fall.
According to an email sent by C&S’ procurement and merchandising teams to it vendors, “C&S will be managing and shipping this business through the current facility located in Harrington, DE with anticipated outbound shipping starting in late June 2021…test EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) purchase orders should be expected starting the first week of May in order to prepare for a smooth transition into the new facility. You should expect live purchase orders to begin transmitting in early June. As we prepare for the inbound receiving start in June, we ask for your continued partnership with the C&S Procurement and Merchandising teams, respectively, to ensure the highest possible service to our customers is maintained.”