Farm Fresh will close two markets, in Va. Beach and N.C.

Farm Fresh is closing two of its 44 supermarkets, one on Kempsville Road in Virginia Beach and the other in Wilson, N.C.

The store at 1832 Kempsville Road is scheduled to close Jan. 24. It is about a mile from a Farm Fresh that opened about 18 months ago at Kempsville Road and Volvo Parkway in Chesapeake.

The chain, based in Virginia Beach, always intended to close the older Kempsville Road store, at Centerville Parkway, after the second one began operating, said Ron Dennis, Farm Fresh's president and chief operating officer, on Friday. With the stores so close, the retailer didn't need both, he said.

The store in Wilson, nearly 50 miles east of Raleigh, just opened in May and is to close Feb. 21. Dennis declined to answer questions about the closing.

The North Carolina store has about 76 employees, and the Kempsville Road store just over 100. Farm Fresh plans to offer those employees jobs at other locations.

Farm Fresh, owned by grocery distribution giant Supervalu Inc., based in Eden Prairie, Minn., is the region's only locally based supermarket chain and is the second-largest in terms of sales. Food Lion is the largest of Hampton Roads' grocery retailers, with about twice the number of stores as Farm Fresh.

The Kroger Co. closed two of its nine Hampton Roads stores in May. The locations on Lynnhaven Parkway in Virginia Beach and Warwick Boulevard in Newport News were shuttered because of poor sales, a spokesman for the Cincinnati-based retailer said at the time.

Despite economic turmoil, Farm Fresh's business is strong, Dennis said, and the company has no plans to close more stores at this time.

In the past couple of years, the retailer has opened stores in northern Suffolk, in Franklin, at the Haygood Shopping Center in Virginia Beach and in downtown Norfolk with The Market at Harbor Heights. Those are in addition to the new Kempsville Road and Wilson locations.

Supervalu, which operates 2,460 stores under a variety of names nationwide, reported this week that sales for its retail stores remained flat from last year at $7.86 billion for the third quarter that ended Nov. 29. In its filing of third-quarter results with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company projected that sales in comparable stores, or those open at least 12 months, would fall by 1 percent for the year.

"The unprecedented decline in the economy and continuing credit market turmoil during the third quarter of fiscal 2009 combined with high food inflation and energy costs continue to negatively impact consumer confidence and spending," the filing states. "If these trends continue, it could lead to further reduced consumer spending, which could impact the company's sales growth."

Setting aside a one-time accounting adjustment that caused Supervalu to report a $2.9 billion loss for the three months ended Nov. 29, the company would have made $132 million, or 62 cents per share. That's down slightly from $144 million, or 66 cents a share, a year earlier.

Carolyn Shapiro, (757) 446-2270, carolyn.shapiro@pilotonline.com