JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Action News Jax has learned that Kroger is planning to close its delivery center on Jacksonville’s northside, shortly after the company announced it would close three other delivery centers around the U.S. in an effort to speed up deliveries in other parts of the country while also making more money off of them.
In a statement to Action News Jax, Kroger said:
“Following a comprehensive review, Kroger identified opportunities to optimize its fulfillment network by closing facilities in Florida, including Jacksonville. Jacksonville customers can utilize Kroger Delivery through January 6.”
Some northeast Florida neighborhoods are now worried about the future of their food, especially those without a grocery store nearby.
“It’s a service that so many of us have come to rely on and use very heavily,” Nancy Maiaro said, who lives in a wooded neighborhood of Callahan and has been using Kroger’s delivery service to get groceries.
Maiaro’s neighborhood is 10 miles from the nearest grocery store, a Winn-Dixie that’s a 20-minute drive from home. She said she’s used other grocery delivery services in the past, but, because of where she lives, food has sometimes gone bad by the time it got to her door.
Without Kroger as an option for delivery, she’s in the market for a new market.
“We’ll probably be having to carve more time out of a work week trying to make the long haul over to the grocery store,” Maiaro said.
Action News Jax looked at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “Food Access Research Atlas,” a map showing areas the USDA has found around the country where there is low access to food. The map shows that many parts of northeast Florida have areas where the USDA reported people are having to go as far as 10 miles or more just to get groceries.
For Maiaro, it’s been a reality while living in Callahan, but with her grocery deliveries going away, it may soon be a routine.
“There’s not a day that goes by that you don’t see one of their delivery trucks in this community. Not a day,” Maiaro said, “so we’ll lose that. We’ll miss that.”
Kroger said 181 employees will be laid off when it shuts down its delivery center in Jacksonville. 167 of those workers are delivery drivers. Kroger is promising that those employees will receive regular pay and benefits through February 1st of 2026, the day when the affected workers will lose their jobs.
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