Nantucket Current | Stop & Shop closes numerous stores on the mainland…

Stop & Shop, the regional supermarket chain on Nantucket, plans to close 32 stores by the end of the year – and some industry insiders fear that this is just the beginning of the chain’s problems.

After the closures, Stop & Shop will operate 20 fewer stores than in 2018, prompting John Niccollai, chairman of the United Food & Commercial Workers Union, The Boston Globe he believes the business is entering a “death spiral” like dozens of other formerly successful grocery chains. This would be especially worrying for Nantucket, where customers have few other options for many products.

Eight of the stores that will close are in Massachusetts. Ahold Delhaize, Stop & Shop’s parent company, has been critical of the company in conference calls about its quarterly results and recently sold New York-based grocery delivery service FreshDirect, which was originally bought in part to boost Stop & Shop’s online sales. The parent company’s data also shows that Stop & Shop is rapidly losing market share.

Stop & Shop claims the closures are part of normal business operations and are focused on poorly performing stores. If that’s true, Nantucket should be safe. Although Ahold Delhaize doesn’t break out profit and loss by store, so it’s impossible to say for sure how successful Stop & Shop’s Nantucket stores are, the lack of competition, relatively higher prices and broad customer base — especially in the summer — suggest they are likely some of the chain’s more profitable stores.

However, Nantucket has experienced a number of problems at local stores recently, including problems with refrigeration and cash registers. While these issues are unrelated and not necessarily the result of the store’s larger problems, they could indicate underlying issues.