Two Albertsons divisions – Safeway/Eastern and Acme Markets – will be merging their headquarter functions, effective in the retailer’s third quarter which begins on September 13. Currently, Safeway’s Eastern division is based in Lanham, MD and Acme is based in Malvern, PA, a distance of approximately 120 miles.

The decision to unify the two divisions, which will now be called Albertsons’ Mid-Atlantic division, is expected to offer greater efficiency and provide a stronger platform for growth.

The Mid-Atlantic division, which will be headquartered in Malvern, will now encompass 275 supermarkets that range from Fairfield County, CT to Culpeper County, VA. Annual sales for those stores are approximately $6 billion.

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The merger will make the Mid-Atlantic division Albertsons’ third largest in terms of store count behind Southern California and Northern California.

In the new alignment, Jim Perkins, currently Acme’s president (and executive VP of Albertsons), will become president of the Mid-Atlantic division, and current Safeway-Eastern president Tom Lofland will serve as senior VP-marketing and merchandising.

In 2017, Perkins, who first joined Albertsons in 1982, oversaw both the Safeway-Eastern and Acme divisions. Lofland, who was named president of Safeway-Eastern in 2018, began his industry career with Albertsons in 1990.

The company is not expected to release a new organizational chart until all interested associates complete (by July 14) a career interest survey. Interviews will follow and it is hoped all personnel will be in place by late August or early September.

Although Albertsons said that 95 associates will be impacted by the consolidation, it is expected that the job losses will be substantially fewer. Other associates may be offered different roles from their current ones and some new positions might also be created by the merger. All told, the newly created division should employ approximately 285 associates.

While there will certainly be some potential relocation for those Safeway associates who are offered jobs that will be based in Malvern, Albertsons plans to keep a smaller regional office in the Baltimore-Washington area that would house some operational, merchandising and clerical staff. Albertsons owns the current Safeway-Eastern headquarters building on Forbes Blvd. in Lanham.

The combining of the two headquarters dovetails with an announcement made by Albertsons earlier this year when the big chain said it would shift its warehousing and logistics responsibilities from Safeway’s distribution center in Upper Marlboro, MD to Acme’s larger mechanized depot in Denver, PA, near Lancaster (like its divisional offices in Lanham, Albertsons also owns the Safeway DC  in Upper Marlboro).

That changeover is nearly complete and with slow moving items (now supplied by C&S from its Bethlehem, PA facility) scheduled to be moved into Denver by the end of the month and Burris Logistics ready to handle Safeway’s frozen business (it has supervised Acme’s frozen distribution for many years), the merging of warehouses will soon be complete. Albertsons also owns its own dairy plant in the eastern PA market, the former Rosenberger’s facility in Hatfield.

“As a company that’s done business with both Acme and Safeway for many years, we have wondered for quite a while when this move was coming,” said the president of a food brokerage company based in the Philadelphia area. “When Albertsons decided to consolidate its distribution centers it made this move the logical next step. I believe that there’s strength in numbers and this consolidation will hopefully make both chains better.” Jim Perkins is a strong leader, and from calling directly on him, I know that Tom Lofland’s got the merchandising chops needed.”