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Originally Posted by jmaccallum

The fall of Winn-Dixie had absolutely nothing to do with The Villages nor any lease agreement with the Developer.

Winn-Dixie has been struggling since 2004 when it announced losses of $79.5 million in just one quarter. Since then Winn-Dixie has gone into Bankruptcy THREE times - in 2005, 2009 and again in 2018.

Bottom line, Winn-Dixie got beat by its competition - mainly Walmart - as Winn-Dixie positioned itself as a like-kind low priced grocer. Publix, on the other hand, went up-scale - differentiating itself by offering products and services not available at the lower priced grocers, albeit at a price, yet thus avoiding direct competition.

Also, Aldi did not buy Winn-Dixie. Aldi Sud bought Southeastern Grocers, Winn-Dixie parent company. And for those of you clamoring for a TRADER JOE’S in The Villages, BOTH Aldi and Trader Joe’s are owned by the same folks - the Albrecht family. Aldi is actually an abbreviation for Albrecht Discounts.

[Note: And for those who want to get technical - yes, there are two Aldi companies - Aldi Nord & Aldi Sud - created when the Albrecht brothers couldn’t agree on whether or not to sell cigarettes in the stores. Aldi Nord owns Trader Joe’s. However, both are private companies (and I do mean very private, here) and both are owned by Foundations of the Albrecht family and heirs - one of the richest, secluded and non-public families in Germany.]

What most of us understand is that”Sud” means south and “Nord” means north. What a coincidence I guess.