Bell’s Food Stores customers should expect to see changes by early 2024 after the five-store chain was acquired by B&T’s Food Fresh Market last week.
The deal was finalized on Friday. Details were not disclosed.
Ralph J. Costa Jr., corporate secretary and director of operations for Bell’s, said the Bell family’s priority was to find a buyer that would retain Bell’s employees. He said B&T’s Food Fresh Market agreed to do that.
“That was our main objective, to make sure our employees were taken care of, and that is one of the agreements that we had with them,” Costa told The Oglethorpe Echo on Monday. “That’s the only way we would’ve done the deal. We talked to many people that wanted to buy us, and keeping our employees was not part of it, so we said bye. Our employees were the main goal, to make sure they were taken care of.”
Costa said B&T’s Food Fresh Market, a small chain based in East Georgia, has plans to redecorate the stores. The name likely will change around the first of the year, he said.
All five Bell’s locations — Lexington, Athens, Watkinsville, Jefferson and Lincolnton — were sold, doubling the size of B&T’s Food Fresh Market, which was founded by John Triplett and Clark Brunson in the early 2000s.
“They’re good people,” Costa said. “They’re energetic and they’re family-owned, like we are, and do business like we do, and that’s the only way to do the deal because they agreed to come in and take over the legacy of Bell’s that it’s had for 97 years. You can’t beat that.”
Costa said Bell’s and B&T’s Food Fresh Market use the same meat and grocery wholesalers as Bell’s.
“The only thing that’s going to change is the name of the business,” he said.
Bell’s emailed a release on Tuesday that states: “The legacy of Bell’s Food Stores is in fantastic hands. B&T only intends to preserve and improve upon what Bell’s has already established.”