Supervalu Inc., a pioneer in the Midwest grocery business that stumbled when it tried to run one of the nation’s largest store chains, agreed to be sold Thursday to an organic foods specialist in a $2.9 billion deal that brings new uncertainty for Cub Foods, Minnesota’s largest grocery operation.
United Natural Foods Inc., a Providence, R.I., firm that is the largest distributor to Whole Foods Market and other natural foods stores, offered to buy Eden Prairie-based Supervalu at a price well above its recent stock trading value. It then laid out plans to sell Cub and the handful of other grocery chains that provide about one-third of Supervalu’s revenue.
United Natural Foods will keep Supervalu’s wholesale business, which distributes goods to more than 3,300 groceries in about 40 states and employs more than 15,000 people. That business dates to the 1800s and remained the big profit generator through Supervalu’s difficult ownership of the Albertsons retail chain, which it sold in 2013.
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