Earth Fare grocery chain closing all stores, including in Columbia
Earth Fare, a specialty grocery store chain with six locations in South Carolina, plans to close all of its stores and liquidate its entire inventory, the company announced Monday.
Columbia’s lone Earth Fare store, on Devine Street, will close with all the others, company spokesperson Jennifer Mercer confirmed to The State. The store has been open for about 20 years.
Liquidation sales will begin on Tuesday, Mercer said, and she expects they could last through the end of February.
In a news release Monday, the Asheville-based company pointed to “challenges in the retail industry” that have kept the company from expanding and improving and have hindered “its ability to refinance its debt.”
“As a result, Earth Fare is not in a financial position to continue to operate on a go-forward basis. As such, we have made the difficult, but necessary decision to commence inventory liquidation sales while we continue to engage in a process to find potential suitors for our stores,” the company said in its release.
The company is seeking a buyer for its stores.
“Earth Fare has been proud to serve the natural and organic grocery market, and the decision to begin the process of closing our stores was not entered into lightly. We’d like to thank our Team Members for their commitment and dedication to serving our customers, and our vendors and suppliers for their partnership,” the company said in the release.
Earth Fare is a full-service supermarket that specializes in natural and organic products. When it opened in Columbia two decades ago, its 22,000 square foot store at the corner of Devine and Millwood Avenue was the company’s largest location at the time, The State reported.
Earth Fare’s other stores in South Carolina are in Charleston, Summerville, Rock Hill, Fort Mill and Greenville.
This story was originally published February 3, 2020 at 10:30 AM.
