Grocery store native Houchens Industries has signed a letter of intent to purchase Buehler Foods Inc., which operates 22 grocery stores in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky, the Bowling Green Kentucky Daily News reported.
Since its founding as a grocery business in 1917, the Kentucky firm has spun off into a number of other industries, everything from convenience stores to suntan products and financial services.
Terms of the deal were not released and the sale is pending the last phase.
"We’re excited about the potential of adding (Buehler Foods)," said Alan Larsen, Houchens director of marketing and merchandising.
Buehler Foods employs 1,500 people and is a family-owned grocery business that started in 1940. Houchens, meanwhile, has more than 200 grocery stores under the banners Sav-A-Lot, Food Giant, IGA, Piggly Wiggly and Mad Butcher.
