Kroger said Tuesday it’s closing three automated fulfillment centers as part of an effort to make its delivery operations faster and more profitable.
The nation’s largest grocer said it will close facilities in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin; Frederick, Maryland; and Groveland, Florida, in January. The company said it will monitor the performance of its five remaining facilities.
“We are taking decisive action to make shopping easier, offer faster delivery times, provide more options to our customers, and we expect to deliver profitable sales growth as a result,” Kroger Chairman and CEO Ron Sargent said in a statement.
Kroger partnered with British grocery technology company Ocado Group in 2018 to build warehouses where robots would pick and pack grocery delivery orders. Initially, the companies planned 20 locations, but only eight have been built so far.
Kroger said it will incur a $2.6 billion charge in its fiscal third quarter related to the closure of its operations. The company said it expects the closures will improve its e-commerce operating profit by $400 million in 2026.
Ocado shares fell 16% Tuesday on the London Stock Exchange. Kroger shares were up 1% Tuesday morning on the New York Stock Exchange.
During a conference call with investors in September, Sargent said that in most locations, it makes sense to use stores to fulfill delivery orders instead of centralized warehouses.
Stores are closer to customers, so orders can be delivered more quickly and cheaply, Sargent said. He said Kroger is capable of delivering orders in less than two hours from 97% of its 2,700 U.S. stores.
“Stores are our most important asset,” Sargent said.
Sargent said that in some high-density areas with strong delivery demand, automated fulfillment facilities are delivering better results.
At the same time, Kroger is also leaning more heavily into partnerships with third-party providers. In September, the company said it was expanding its partnership with DoorDash. DoorDash offered delivery of sushi, flowers and prepared meals from Kroger starting in 2022, but it now offers delivery of Kroger's full assortment of products.
Last month, Kroger announced a similar expanded partnership with Uber Eats. And earlier this month, Kroger said it was working with Instacart to expand express delivery from its stores. Kroger will also be one of the first retailers to offer access to Instacart's AI assistant, which builds delivery orders automatically based on customers' preferences and provides meal ideas.
FILE - A Kroger grocery store is seen in Monroe, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jeff Dean, File)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Chang Ung, a former North Korean member of the International Olympic Committee who once led sports exchanges with rival South Korea, including joint marches of their athletes at the Olympics, has died, the IOC announced Wednesday. He was 87.
The IOC said on its website that it had learned with “extreme sadness” of Chang’s death on Sunday. It said the Olympic flag will be flown at half-mast for three days at the Olympic House in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The IOC statement didn't describe the cause of Chang's death. North Korea’s state media has not reported on his death.
Born in 1938, Chang was originally a basketball player who captained the North Korean national team. After retiring from the sport, he became an athletics administrator, serving as a vice sports minister, a vice chairman of North Korea’s national Olympic Committee and a vice president of the Olympic Council of Asia.
In 1996, Chang was elected to the IOC. As North Korea’s only-ever IOC member, he represented his country on international sports fields and headed numerous — if often rocky — talks with South Korea to promote sports exchange and cooperation programs between the rivals.
The most notable results of this diplomacy came at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, when athletes of the two Koreas marched together under a “unification flag” depicting their peninsula during the opening and closing ceremonies, the first joint parade since their division in 1945.
Athletes of the Koreas walked together at following Olympic Games and major international sports events, including the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics in South Korea. After watching a joint march in Pyeongchang’s opening ceremony, Chang told reporters that he was deeply moved.
Chang played a key role in earlier reconciliation talks with South Korea, which led to the two countries sending their first unified male and female teams to the 1991 world table tennis championships in Chiba, Japan. In Pyeongchang, the two Koreas fielded their first combined Olympic team for women’s ice hockey.
In a 2004 interview with South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper, Chang said that organizing the 2000 joint march was “really a tough” job. He also said he strongly supported Pyeongchang’s earlier, failed bid to host the Winter Olympics.
South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young expressed condolences over Chang’s death. In a Facebook post Wednesday, Chung, a staunch advocate of rapprochement with North Korea, recalled his 2007 meeting with Chang on taekwondo exchange programs and said he honors Chang's “noble dedication to (Korean) unity and peace.”
Sports ties between North and South Korea have suffered as political relations frayed.
There have been no sports or other exchange programs between the countries for years. North Korea has shunned talks with South Korea and the U.S. since its leader Kim Jong Un’s broader nuclear diplomacy with U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed in 2019. Kim also branded South Korea as a permanent enemy and rejected the idea of future unification.
The IOC said Chang’s contributions helped advance sports participation, cultural exchanges and the role of sport in society.
“His efforts to promote cooperation on the Korean Peninsula demonstrated the power of sport to build bridges and inspire hope,” IOC President Kirsty Coventry said.
The IOC said Chang served on several commissions, including Sport for All and the International Olympic Truce Foundation.
North Korea’s official news agency, KCNA, last mentioned Chang in 2023, when he was awarded the Olympic Order, an award given to those who have made extraordinary contributions to the Olympics, during an IOC session in Mumbai, India. Chang, then an honorary IOC member, joined the ceremony by video.
FILE - Then North Korea's International Olympic Committee, IOC, member Chang Ung, middle row left, waves with officials of International Taekwondo Federation for the media upon their arrival at Gimpo International Airport in Seoul, South Korea, on June 23, 2017. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)
FILE - Then North Korea's IOC representative Chang Ung, left, arrives after a flight from Pyongyang at Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, on Jan. 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
FILE - Then North Korea's IOC representative Chang Ung arrives after a flight from Pyongyang at Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing on Jan. 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
