Food Lion plans to open six more stores in Carolinas and Georgia by year-end
Food Lion announced on Tuesday that it will add six new stores across North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia before the end of 2026. These openings, together with four stores launched earlier in 2026, will bring the chain’s total new-store count for the year to ten, a sharp increase from the single net additions in fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2025.
The four stores opened so far this year are two each in North Carolina and South Carolina. The six additional stores planned for later 2026 include two in North Carolina, three in South Carolina, and one in Georgia, with a Summerfield, NC store opening next Wednesday; Charlotte, NC; Lavonia, GA; and Greenville, SC stores opening in October; a Hilton Head, SC store debuting in November; and a Wren, SC store opening in December. All new locations will feature ready-to-eat, ready-to-cook, and ready-to-heat meals, the Local Goodness program of regionally sourced items, and pickup or home delivery via the Food Lion website, app, and third-party platforms such as Instacart, DoorDash, and Uber Eats. Meanwhile, Food Lion is remodeling 93 stores in the Greensboro, NC market, aiming to finish the work later this year, and is preparing similar updates in the Richmond and Roanoke, VA markets per CFO Jolanda Poots-Bijl’s August remarks to investors.
The expansion follows Ahold Delhaize’s 2025 announcement of an automated grocery distribution center in Burlington, North Carolina, and the subsequent ground-breaking on that facility in February 2026 to boost fresh and frozen food supply to Food Lion stores in the state. Prior to this year’s acceleration, the chain had added just one net new store in each of fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2025.
What we know
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.
Food Lion is also currently remodeling 93 stores in the Greensboro, North Carolina, market, a project it expects to finalize by later this year.
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.