Dive Brief:
- Food Lion announced Tuesday that it plans to open six more stores across the Carolinas and Georgia before the end of the year.
- These upcoming locations, coupled with four stores it opened earlier this year, will bring the grocery chain’s new store openings for 2026 to 10.
- The 10 new stores this year mark significant expansion for Food Lion, which added one net new store in fiscal 2025 and one in fiscal 2024.
Dive Insight:
Food Lion said the store openings this year are helping build momentum to further expand its store fleet in 2027.
During the first three months of 2026, Food Lion opened four stores — two each in North Carolina and South Carolina. The Ahold Delhaize banner has more than 1,100 stores across 10 states.
The six store openings set for later this year include two in North Carolina, three in South Carolina and one in Georgia. A store in Summerfield, North Carolina, is scheduled to open next Wednesday. Stores in Charlotte, North Carolina; Lavonia, Georgia; and Greenville, South Carolina, are slated to open in October. Two other South Carolina stores will round out the openings this year, with one in Hilton Head debuting in November, followed by one in Wren in December.
The upcoming Food Lion locations will feature ready-to-eat, ready-to-cook and ready-to-heat meal options as well include the grocer’s Local Goodness program, which features a variety of regionally sourced items, according to the announcement. The new stores will also offer pickup and home delivery through the Food Lion website and app as well as through Instacart, DoorDash and Uber Eats.
Food Lion’s growth in the Carolinas and Georgia follows Ahold Delhaize’s announcement in 2025 that it plans to open an automated grocery distribution center in Burlington, North Carolina. The grocer broke ground on the facility, which aims to expand fresh and frozen food distribution to Food Lion supermarkets in North Carolina, in February.
Food Lion is also currently remodeling 93 stores in the Greensboro, North Carolina, market, a project it expects to finalize by later this year. In addition, the chain is preparing for its next set of remodels in the Richmond and Roanoke, Virginia, markets, Ahold Delhaize CFO Jolanda Poots-Bijl told investors in August.
Food Lion continues to be Ahold Delhaize USA’s golden child, achieving its 55th consecutive quarter of positive comp-store sales growth and over 20% growth in online sales in the company’s second quarter.
