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Lidl -- which closed a deal on Bergenfield's former ACME market earlier this week -- had plans to open nearly 100 stores between Summer 2017 and Summer 2018. As of July of this year, the retailer had opened barely half of that, Forbes reports.
Senior grocery executives were reportedly shocked by how the retailer, with more than 10,500 stores in nearly 30 countries, could have such a poor design strategy given the extreme hype that came with its 2017 U.S. expansion, according to Forbes.
"Grocery executives feared that Lidl would enter the U.S. and within a few short years, establish a position as the low-price leader for the majority of products purchased by grocery shoppers," the article says.
"One year later, Lidl has opened exactly 53 stores and has failed to achieve anything close to a viable, long-term business strategy capable of threatening any of the incumbent grocery retailers operating in the U.S."
The purchase was nothing but good news in Bergenfield, though, which has been without a supermarket since ACME -- at the former Pathmark site -- closed in November 2017.
Mayor Norman Schmelz is thrilled simply to have a local grocer again.
"As we all hoped for," he wrote on Facebook, "we will have a supermarket in the old Pathmark. I’m very happy for our community."
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