President of Acme Markets resigns

Judith A. Spires, president of Acme Markets, announced yesterday that she is resigning and will leave her post Friday, capping a run that began 40 years ago, when she was an Acme checkout girl in South Jersey.

Supervalu Inc., the Minnesota-based company that owns the 124-store Acme chain, said a successor would be announced at a later date. Spires is leaving "to pursue a new career opportunity" with an unidentified employer, the company said.

"On behalf of the company, I thank Judy for her years of service and wish her the best as she pursues her career interests," Pete Van Helden, executive vice president of retail operations for Supervalu, said in a news release. Van Helden will temporarily assume Spires' responsibilities.

"I am extremely proud of our many achievements at Acme," Spires, 57, said in a statement released by Supervalu. "I will miss working with the many dedicated and talented people at Acme and wish the team the very best as they continue to work hard to grow the business."

Reached by telephone last night, Spires declined to discuss her next move, citing provisions of a confidentiality agreement.

Acme spokeswoman Taryne L. Williams said Spires' departure was "not at all" related to recent speculation about the chain's future. "This was a personal decision on Judy's part," Williams said.

A person with knowledge of the situation said Spires had been hired as chief executive of an unnamed company outside the Philadelphia market.

Spires has run Acme Markets since 2006. She had previously been president of the Dallas/Fort Worth division of Albertsons Inc., the supermarket corporation that owned Acme until both were purchased by Supervalu in 2006. She was a teenager when she started in 1970 with the grocery chain, then owned by American Stores.

Supervalu, a publicly traded corporation, is carrying $8 billion in debt. It recently announced that it is selling some of its supermarket holdings in Connecticut, and last summer it sold stores in Utah. Those moves fanned speculation about which, if any, of its brands might be sold next.

Last week, Supervalu said it had no immediate plans to sell Acme Markets - a position reinforced yesterday by Williams, who works with Spires at Acme's headquarters in Malvern.

"The rumor about a sale is not correct," Williams said. "There are no plans in the works to sell Acme."

Industry observers have wondered whether Acme would be sold or whether Supervalu would instead invest millions to reinvigorate the Philadelphia-area icon and push back its competition.

Shop Rite, Giant, Wegmans, Genuardi's, Walmart, Super Fresh, Pathmark, and other chains have made the Philadelphia region one of the most competitive supermarket playing fields in the country, analysts say. Acme still retains the lead in regional market share, but its competitors have been closing in.

Yesterday, Food Trade News publisher Jeff Metzger said he was "a little surprised" but not "shocked" that Spires was leaving Acme. Supervalu has been centralizing decision-making over its U.S. supermarket chains at the corporation's Eden Prairie, Minn., headquarters, he said.

"I think the handwriting was on the wall in terms of the expectations of the [Acme] division," Metzger said.

Running Acme over the last few years has been a "challenge," he said, as Supervalu has limited the power of the regional office. Local food suppliers now call Minnesota instead of Malvern.

Such tight reins would make running Acme hard regardless of who is in charge, he said.

For example, to lower prices a company has to be willing to make less profit, with the hope it can attract more customers. Acme's competitors have been aggressive about lowering prices, while Supervalu has seemed less willing to upset its shareholders with such a strategy over the long term, he said.

Of Spires, Metzger said: "She certainly has tremendous energy and enthusiasm, is an excellent people motivator."

Spires, whose father was an Acme bread truck driver, is among the region's most highly regarded female executives. A year ago, the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce honored her with its annual Paradigm Award.

It was quite a leap from where she began: as a cashier in the Westmont store.