Stater Bros. Buys in-Store Pharmacies

Aug. 20–Stater Bros. Markets has purchased the assets of the company that operated 16 Super Rx pharmacies located in Stater Bros. stores.

Progressive Grocer magazine reported Friday that Stater Bros. Chairman and Chief Executive Jack Brown cited his company’s rapid growth as the reason for the purchase.

“We were expanding too fast for (the previous owner) to keep up, so we decided to take over the pharmacies,” the magazine quoted Brown as saying.

Colton-based Stater Bros. declined to comment on the purchase.

In a June 26 financial statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Stater Bros. said it purchased the assets of California Pharmacy Systems Inc. for $2.6 million plus the cost of inventory and less $500,000 it had previously paid to the company.

California Pharmacy Systems president John Tilley was not available for comment Friday.

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Tilley signed a three-year non-compete and confidentiality agreement as part of the purchase.

Stater Bros. stores got their first pharmacies in 1999, when the company purchased 33 Albertsons and 10 Lucky grocery stores. Albertsons had bought Lucky’s parent company, and federal regulators forced Albertsons to sell some of those stores to maintain a competitive balance in California.

Stater changed the pharmacies’ name to Super Rx Pharmacies two years later when it contracted with California Pharmacy Systems to run them.

Stater Bros. is the largest private company based in the Inland Empire. According to a 2004 report by Supermarket News, the company was the 33rd-largest grocery chain in the country. The chain currently has 161 stores.

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