Sarasota Winn-Dixie to close, reemerge as Aldi

By Jim DeLa
| 9:20 a.m. January 21, 2025

The Winn-Dixie in the Southeast Plaza, at the corner of Bee Ridge Road and McIntosh Road, is being converted to an Aldi, the company said.

Sarasota
Business

A Sarasota Winn-Dixie supermarket will be closing in February as it converts to an Aldi store, a spokesperson for Aldi has confirmed.

Signs on the facade of the Winn-Dixie in the Southeast Plaza, at the corner of Bee Ridge Road and McIntosh Road, announced the news to customers.

“The store will reopen to the community as an ALDI over the next several months,” the spokesperson told the Observer in an email.

Fast-growth and low-cost grocer Aldi announced the acquisition of Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarket in 2023 as part of parent company Southeastern Grocers' divestiture plans. The acquisition included approximately 400 Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarket locations across Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi.

The Winn Dixie in Southeast Plaza, at the corner of Bee Ridge Road and McIntosh Road, is shedding inventory before it will be converted to an Aldi, the company said. — The Winn-Dixie in Southeast Plaza, at the corner of Bee Ridge Road and McIntosh Road, is shedding inventory before it will be converted to an Aldi, the company said.

Employees at the Bee Ridge Road Winn-Dixie will be able to be the first to apply to newly converted ALDI stores or transfer, the spokesperson said.

“ALDI is committed to doing its best to minimize the impact and provide support and opportunities to associates at converting stores, including the option to remain with Winn-Dixie and transfer to a neighboring store.”

Aldi added new stores in Lakeland in 2023 and converted Winn-Dixie stores in Lakeland and south Tampa in 2024.

The chain is known for keeping its prices low by cutting back on frills, such as a deli counter and pharmacy, and keeping things simple.

Aldi also requires customers to pay 25 cents to use a shopping cart (it’s refunded when you return the cart) and does not provide bags for customers to carry their purchases from the store.

Aldi also carries a limited number of brands. The company says 90% of its products are private label.

Winn-Dixie traces its roots back to the 1920s when the Davis family opened a store in Miami and began expanding with other stores, according to the Jacksonville Daily Record, sister paper of the Observer.

The company established its headquarters in Jacksonville in 1944 and after a series of transactions, the company was named Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. in 1955.

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Winn-Dixie struggled in the early 2000s and went through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in 2005 and 2006.

Winn-Dixie merged with Bi-Lo Holdings in 2012 to form Southeastern Grocers.

Southeastern went through a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in 2018, with a group of investment funds taking control of the company.

The company filed plans for an initial public offering in 2020 but pulled the IPO off the market in January 2021, and it has been the subject of buyout rumors since that time, the Jacksonville Daily Record reports.

author

Jim DeLa

Jim DeLa is the digital content producer for the Observer. He has served in a variety of roles over the past four decades, working in television, radio and newspapers in Florida, Colorado and Hawaii. He was most recently a reporter with the Community News Collaborative, producing journalism on a variety of topics in Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties; and as a digital producer for ABC7 in Sarasota.