C&S Wholesale Grocers announced Wednesday it is partnering with Atlantic Grocery Supply (AGS) to provide wholesale and supply offerings to retailers in the Caribbean and Central and South America.
This tie-up allows C&S to tap into AGS parent company Sun Group’s “deep history” supplying retailers in the Southeast and the Caribbean. For AGS, the partnership will let it provide its supply export customers with competitive pricing and a grocery assortment of more than 40,000 items, according to the press release.
The partnership will operate out of C&S’s 1-million-square-foot warehouse in Miami. C&S and AGS will work together on sales to in-state independent retail customers while AGS will take the lead on sales to export customers, per the announcement.
Working with C&S will enable Sun Group to continue expanding its international grocery operations. Sun Group is one of the U.S.’s largest wholesale produce distributors with locations throughout the Southeast.
This announcement comes as C&S remains in the spotlight following the downfall of the proposed Kroger-Albertsons merger. The distributor was set to acquire hundreds of stores from the two grocery companies if their merger had received regulatory approval.
In March, C&S sued Kroger, alleging that the grocer has not yet paid the wholesaler the $125 million termination fee owed for the failed merger efforts. Weeks later, Kroger claimed in a legal filing that C&S is not entitled to the termination fee because the company breached its contract with Kroger when it was trying to seek regulatory approval for its merger with Albertsons.
Aside from the ongoing legal battle drama, C&S has also laid off a number of workers. Earlier this month, the wholesaler announced plans to shutter its Baldwin, Florida, distribution center, costing around 490 employees their jobs. C&S also laid off at least 76 workers in mid-March, impacting employees at sites in Hawaii, Vermont, New Jersey, Texas and New York.
