Would anyone be surprised if Publix CEO Ed Crenshaw was somewhere singing, "In my mind I'm going to Carolina"?
According to several reports, Publix is opening new stores in suburban South Carolina, just across the border from Charlotte, NC, Harris Teeter's home base. Publix has steadily grown its store base northward from Florida to include locations in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee.
Harris Teeter is the largest "traditional" grocer in the Charlotte area with 22 percent of the market. It is seen as the most direct competitor to Publix, should it make the move into the Tar Heel State. While it is based in North Carolina, Harris Teeter is a substantially smaller business than the Florida chain. Teeter operates 206 stores compared to Publix with 1,046.
Supermarket Guru Phil Lempert told The Charlotte Observer, "If I were Harris Teeter, it's really going to be a call to action, to be on your game. ... As (Publix) has proven in Atlanta, they can go into a market and really do a bang-up job."