Publix Pulling Plug on GreenWise Stores

Grocer Publix (Lakeland, Fla.) is closing the last of its GreenWise stores and converting the locales into traditional Publix stores, Winsight Grocery Business reports. Seven of the stores are in Florida and one is in Alabama.

Maria Brous, the grocer’s Director of Communications, told WGB that “our customers’ shopping habits have reinforced that they enjoy the attributes of a Publix GreenWise Market location, but within their traditional Publix shopping setting.”

The store transitions of the eight GreenWise locales are expected to take place separately, and no specific dates have been announced. In 2020, Publix shuttered two GreenWise locations it had operated in South Carolina, citing space constraints.

Brous said insights gained from the GreenWise concept are being applied to the latest Publix store prototype, the first of which opened in Tampa, Fla., earlier this year.

For example, WGB reported separately that Publix is continuing to expand its Pour shop concept that originated in the GreenWise stores into its traditional stores. The latest Pour – an in-store bar for shoppers offering coffee, tea, smoothies and alcohol – opened in the new Publix in Neptune Beach, Fla.