Kroger is updating and expanding supermarkets in Michigan and plans to hire 2,000 people within the next 18 months.

“This is part of a major initiative that shows how the face of Kroger in Michigan is changing,” Dale Hollandsworth, a Kroger spokesman, said Monday. “We’ve got to be prepared for the future.”

The challenge for the Cincinnati-based chain, which has been around for 130 years, is to make its stores larger to compete with Meijer, Target, Wal-Mart and even Costco, without losing customers who prefer to buy groceries in a smaller, more neighborhood, retail setting.

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