Story originally printed in the Winona Daily News or online at www.winonadailynews.com
Published - Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Midtown: Pharmacy sold from under them
When Edina, Minn.-based Nash Finch Co. sold Quality Care pharmacy last week to a crosstown rival, no one was more surprised than Midtown Foods’ co-owner Tommy Thompson.
The pharmacy had been in Midtown Foods’ Winona Mall location. Thompson said Nash Finch contacted him “at the 11th hour” on March 8 to let him know about the imminent sale that would move the pharmacy to Winona’s Hy-Vee Foods. With virtually no time to put together an offer for the pharmacy, Thompson said he was unable to keep it at the mall location.
Midtown Foods opened the pharmacy after Nash Finch’s EconoFoods in Goodview, Minn., closed Jan. 22, 2005.
Quality Care Pharmacy was owned by Nash Finch but had a close relationship with locally-owned Midtown Foods. Thompson explained that Midtown buys groceries from Nash Finch.
“We considered Nash Finch a partner. We buy a lot of groceries from them,” he said. “We consider this a callous disregard for our relationship.”
Nash Finch cited the lack of pharmacists coupled with an “overpopulation of pharmacies in the Winona market,” as the reasons for the sale, which included current inventory and a customer list.
Calling the sale “not morally right,” Thompson said he planned to “dissolve the relationship with Nash Finch” and get groceries from SuperValu, another Minnesota-based food supplier.
Nash Finch declined comment on this story, instead releasing a “media statement” about the sale.
“We regret that we are no longer able to provide pharmacy services in Winona,” the statement said. “The sale of a pharmacy requires a swift and efficient process to make certain customers receive uninterrupted service. Throughout this sale, we were focused on ensuring that the needs of our customers would be best served by their new pharmacy.”
Thompson said he’s sad for his customers, many of whom relied on the pharmacy in the mall location.
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