Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co., the Charleston grocer that got its start in 1947, is selling 28 of its stores to two larger chains.

The employee-owned company said Thursday it would sell 22 stores to Bi-Lo Holdings and six to Harris Teeter, Supermarket News reported. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Harris Teeter Supermarkets Inc. announced the same day that its operating subsidiary had agreed to buy six Piggly Wiggly locations and one future store location in the Charleston area from Piggly Wiggly and its parent, Greenbax Enterprises Inc.

“The departure of employees and stores from the Piggly Wiggly team will be acutely felt, but we know that Bi-Lo Holdings and Harris Teeter will benefit from these outstanding folks,” David Schools, Piggly Wiggly Carolina’s president and chief executive, said in a statement quoted by Supermarket News.

Which stores are going

Harris Teeter, based in Matthews, North Carolina, is buying two stores in Mount Pleasant, on Ben Sawyer Boulevard and Riviera Drive, and three Charleston-area stores on Maybank Highway, Folly Road and Harborview Road, according to a store list published by Supermarket News. It is also taking the Newton Farms specialty store on Gardeners Circle on Johns Island and a second Newton Farms store under construction on Palm Boulevard in Isle of Palms.

Harris Teeter said it planned to expand and remodel the stores it is buying, Supermarket News reported.

Bi-Lo Holdings, based in Jacksonville, Florida, is buying 16 stores in South Carolina and six in coastal Georgia. The company said it expects to convert them to the Bi-Lo name after the deal closes in the fourth quarter.

The Bi-Lo list includes Piggly Wiggly’s store at 445 Meeting St. in downtown Charleston, along with stores on Skylark Drive in Charleston, U.S. 78 in Ladson, Maybank Highway on Johns Island and Jungle Road in Edisto Beach. Farther afield, it takes in stores in Pawleys Island, Bluffton, Columbia, Lexington, Greenwood, Clover and Savannah, Georgia.

Both buyers said they would keep the workers at the stores they acquire. Piggly Wiggly said all employees at the affected stores will have job opportunities with Harris Teeter and Bi-Lo.

Why sell now

Piggly Wiggly began the talks itself, according to Mark Gross of Surry Investment Advisors, the company’s financial adviser on the deal. Gross told Supermarket News the company wanted to address debt from its conversion to employee ownership and growing competition, especially around Charleston.

Gross said well-funded competitors were coming into the Charleston market, naming Publix, Harris Teeter and “a post-bankruptcy, revitalized, re-energized Bi-Lo.”

“Those three in particular brought added competitive pressure in a market where a small ESOP finds it more and more difficult to compete with bigger, more well-funded successful grocery chains,” he told Supermarket News.

The sale is the latest in a run of Southeastern grocery deals this year. Harris Teeter agreed in July to be acquired by Cincinnati-based Kroger Co. Bi-Lo Holdings, which also owns Winn-Dixie, announced plans earlier this year to buy the Sweetbay, Reid’s and Harveys chains from Delhaize America.

What Piggly Wiggly keeps

After the sale, Piggly Wiggly Carolina will run 32 company-owned stores, mostly in rural markets, and supply 28 franchised stores, Supermarket News reported.

Schools said shoppers at the stores being sold would still see familiar faces.

“We are glad that employees in these stores will have the opportunity to work for Bi-Lo Holdings or Harris Teeter, and guests will continue to be served by the familiar people who have been the backbone of these stores for years,” he said.

A Charleston original

The company traces its start to 1947, when Joseph T. Newton Jr. bought a Piggly Wiggly franchise and began supplying independent grocers from an old cotton warehouse at the foot of Pritchard Street in Charleston, according to the company’s history. It moved to a larger building in North Charleston in 1959.

In the mid-1960s, Newton bought out a Columbia company that operated as Piggly Wiggly Carolina and combined it with his Charleston business, adding 30 stores, the company says. As independent grocers struggled to finance modern supermarkets, Piggly Wiggly began building and running its own stores, and more than 75% of its stores became company owned.

Newton’s son, Joseph T. “Buzzy” Newton III, became president in 1979. Schools now leads the company, which keeps its corporate offices on Croghan Spur Road in Charleston.

Both sales still need to close before the stores change hands.