Kroger plans to close around 60 U.S. grocery stores over the next 18 months to improve efficiency.
The Cincinnati, Ohio-based company announced the plan during a corporate earnings call last Friday. The company hasn’t said which stores it plans to shutter, but said the closures will happen around the country. It also said employees at impacted stores will be offered jobs at other locations.
“We see this as an opportunity to move these closed store sales to other stores, and we think that should improve profitability,” Kroger’s interim Chairman and CEO Ronald Sargent said during the call.
Sargent also said Kroger plans to open at least 30 stores this year and will accelerate its store openings in “high-growth geographies” next year.
A message seeking details of the company's plans was left Wednesday with Kroger.
Kroger is the nation’s largest supermarket chain, with 2,731 stores in 35 states and the District of Columbia. It operates stores under multiple brand names, including Smith’s, Ralphs, King Soopers and Fred Meyer.
Sargent said Kroger usually evaluates the performance of individual stores on an annual basis but it deferred any store closings during its two-year effort to merge with rival Albertsons. The two companies announced the $24.6 billion merger plan in 2022 but the deal fell apart late last year after two judges blocked it due to concerns about competition.
Kroger's plan to close stores comes as the company is facing labor unrest over issues including chronic understaffing at stores, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers union. Union members in Southern California began picketing at a Los Angeles Ralphs last week. Workers at King Soopers stores in Colorado also went on strike earlier this year.
FILE - A sign is affixed to the exterior of a Kroger grocery store in Monroe, Ohio, in this undated photo. (AP Photo/Jeff Dean, File)
FILE - A customer moves purchases at a Kroger grocery store in Flowood, Miss., June 26, 2019. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
A Ukrainian drone strike killed one person and wounded three others in the Russian city of Voronezh, local officials said Sunday.
A young woman died overnight in a hospital intensive care unit after debris from a drone fell on a house during the attack on Saturday, regional Gov. Alexander Gusev said on Telegram.
Three other people were wounded and more than 10 apartment buildings, private houses and a high school were damaged, he said, adding that air defenses shot down 17 drones over Voronezh. The city is home to just over 1 million people and lies some 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
The attack came the day after Russia bombarded Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles overnight into Friday, killing at least four people in the capital Kyiv, according to Ukrainian officials.
For only the second time in the nearly four-year war, Russia used a powerful new hypersonic missile that struck western Ukraine in a clear warning to Kyiv and NATO.
The intense barrage and the launch of the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile followed reports of major progress in talks between Ukraine and its allies on how to defend the country from further aggression by Moscow if a U.S.-led peace deal is struck.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday in his nightly address that Ukrainian negotiators “continue to communicate with the American side.”
Chief negotiator Rustem Umerov was in contact with U.S. partners Saturday, he said.
Separately, Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia targeted Ukraine with 154 drones overnight into Sunday and 125 were shot down.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
This photo provided by the Ukrainian Security Service on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, shows a fragment believed to be a part of a Russian Oreshnik intermediate range hypersonic ballistic missile that hit the Lviv region. (Ukrainian Security Service via AP)
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, second left, listens to British Defense Secretary John Healey during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
