Dive Brief:
- Wakefern Food Corp. announced Monday that it plans to operate a centralized pharmacy fulfillment system at one of its facilities.
- When it opens in early 2027, the 12,000-square-foot facility will serve pharmacies in149 ShopRite locations and two The Fresh Grocer stores in the Northeast. Wakefern said it will run the facility in partnership with iA, a pharmacy fulfillment solutions provider.
- Wakefern said the facility will automate back-end pharmacy operations, boosting efficiency and easing the workload of its pharmacists.
Dive Insight:
Wakefern said its plans for the centralized facility come at a time when the pharmacy industry is facing headwinds such as reimbursement challenges, rising prescription volumes and staffing issues. The centralized facility will handle high-volume prescription dispensing and “fill thousands of prescriptions each day,” allowing more scalable and efficient prescription dispensing, per the announcement.
Wakefern wants its pharmacists to have more time to interact with customers, according to the announcement.
The technology implemented at the facility will connect to ShopRite’s digital tools, including the ShopRite Rx app, to help shoppers manage prescriptions and request refills.
“Our ShopRite Pharmacies sit at a unique intersection of medicine and food — two essential drivers of everyday health,” Aaron Sapp, vice president of pharmacy and wellness at Wakefern, said in a statement. “This centralized fulfillment system will help better coordinate our behind-the-scenes pharmacy operations, allowing our pharmacy teams to focus on delivering more personalized care to the customers we serve in stores every day.”
The upcoming pharmacy fulfillment center is the latest move by Wakefern to streamline its operations. In the spring, the retailer-owned cooperative implemented a sweeping restructuring of its sales and marketing team to refocus its customer communications efforts around each of its eight banners.
Wakefern runs more than 380 supermarkets under banners including ShopRite, Price Rite Marketplace, The Fresh Grocer, Dearborn Market, Gourmet Garage, Fairway Market, Di Bruno Bros. and Morton Williams. The co-op’s members operate 151 in-store pharmacies.
