Dive Brief:

• Hy-Vee plans to provide free grocery and pharmacy delivery service to shoppers of three Iowa stores the grocery chain plans to shutter on June 23, the supermarket operator announced Monday.
• The company will also provide free shuttle service from the stores, which are located in Cedar Rapids, Waterloo and Davenport, Iowa, to the Hy-Vee locations where prescriptions from each of the closing stores will be transferred.
• Hy-Vee also said it will try to find tenants for the three spaces it is vacating and will not place restrictions on any of the sites.

Dive Insight:

Hy-Vee has faced community backlash since its disclosure early last month that it intended to close the three stores.

The grocer’s decision to stop running the stores will leave people in underserved communities without easy access to groceries, critics said.

The assistance program the company announced this week reflects what the grocer described in a press release as an effort to “implement viable solutions to ease the transition for these communities.”

In an emailed statement, Hy-Vee indicated that the stores had underperformed, but did not provide details about why it concluded that they should be closed. “Unfortunately, these locations have not consistently met our financial expectations and sales goals over the past several years,” Hy-Vee said.

The company said it will provide shuttle service from the stores that are closing on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays through Sept. 1, and “will reevaluate their use by the community” after that point.

Hy-Vee also plans to provide grocery delivery through its Aisles Online e-commerce service for a year to people who live within a one-mile radius of each store. People need to register for the service by Sept. 1, and orders must total at least $24.95 to qualify for fee-free delivery. In addition, Hy-Vee plans to provide free pharmacy delivery to people in Cedar Rapids, Waterloo and Davenport.

The chain said it would also fund, supply and staff several food distribution events in July and August.

Hy-Vee said it has offered jobs at other stores to all employees at the soon-to-close locations. Those workers will continue to receive the same rate of pay and benefits that they currently earn, according to the retailer.

“Hy-Vee continues to be committed to the Davenport, Waterloo and Cedar Rapids areas through our involvement and continued investments in the local communities, and we look forward to serving our customers at one of our other Hy-Vee locations,” the company said.

The upcoming closures of the three Iowa stores comes at a time when Hy-Vee is expanding its retail footprint through its recent acquisition of Indiana chain Strack & Van Til and planning new supermarkets, including locations in Kentucky and Tennessee, which would be new states for the retailer.