Schnucks Markets has bought out Festival Foods.
That’s the word from St. Louis-based Schnucks, where CEO Todd Schnuck says the supermarket chain has closed on purchase of Skogen’s Festival Foods and Hometown Grocers.
Onalaska and Green Bay-based Skogen’s and Hometown run 51 stores around the state, including Janesville’s Festival Foods.
Schnucks says it now owns 100% of Skogen’s shares — including the company’s employee ownership plan.
The announcement comes as Schnucks permanently closes its Janesville supermarket off Milton Avenue that ran for more than 20 years. No word whether that closure was a strategic move linked to Schnucks’ Festival Foods buyout.
Schnucks earlier had characterized its Janesville closure as a response to economic shifts in the grocery business.
Festival’s Janesville store is a larger, newer supermarket that’s set along the grocery-heavy Humes Road corridor. Schnucks’ soon-to-close Janesville location is off Milton Avenue, about a mile removed from a larger cluster of competing grocery stores along Humes Road, including Woodman’s Market, Hy-Vee, and Aldi.
Schnucks says Festival and Hometown will retain its own headquarters and its brands will become sister companies to Schnucks.
