C&S Wholesale Grocers plans to lay off at least 76 workers at multiple locations in five states come mid-March, according to a notice the grocery company filed in January with state labor officials in Hawaii.
The employees, who work for C&S units at sites in Hawaii, Vermont, New Jersey, Texas and New York, will begin a two-week separation period on March 14, C&S said in a Jan. 8 letter to the Hawaii State Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. The company said it voluntarily alerted the agency about the job cuts to permit it to assist affected workers in Kapolei, Hawaii.
The workers C&S is letting go are primarily customer service representatives and managers. C&S said in the letter that the workers, who are not unionized, are losing their jobs “due to the outsourcing of certain customer service functions,” without providing further details. C&S indicated that one of the impacted employees is a retail help desk representative for WNY Logistics, a C&S division in Olean, New York.
A C&S spokesperson declined to comment on the job cuts in an email to Grocery Dive.
While primarily a wholesaler, C&S has recently sought to build its presence as a grocery retailer. The company announced in early February that it had partnered with the current president and CEO of Southeastern Grocers and other investors to buy about 170 Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarket locations from Aldi.
C&S had been in line to acquire nearly 600 supermarkets and other assets from Kroger and Albertsons through a divestiture deal those grocery chains crafted in a bid to win regulatory approval for their planned merger. That plan fell through in December when a pair of judges blocked the merger.
Based in Keene, New Hampshire, C&S also operates supermarkets under the Piggly Wiggly and Grand Union banners.
Catherine Douglas Moran contributed reporting.
