North Carolina shoppers are confronting another round of grocery cutbacks after a food distributor announced three facility closures earlier this fall. Fresh Foods IGA is preparing to close supermarkets in Chadbourn and Castle Hayne, trimming two neighborhood shopping options in different parts of southeastern North Carolina.
Fresh Foods IGA announced that its Chadbourn store at 121 E. Strawberry Boulevard would close in November and began a storewide liquidation sale. The company did not disclose a final day of business or give a reason for the shutdown, so the location’s exact closing date remains unsettled.
Two communities are losing familiar stores
Fresh Foods IGA has operated the Chadbourn supermarket since 2016, when it took over the former Piggly Wiggly. A local report puts the affected workforce at about 20 people. Whether those employees will be laid off, transferred, or offered other jobs has not been announced.
Chadbourn shoppers will still have a Food Lion at 809 N. Brown Street, and a new grocery option in nearby Fair Bluff may help some households. Even so, the IGA closing removes a familiar full-service store with grocery, meat, produce, seafood, and deli departments from the center of town.
The Castle Hayne location at 5601 Castle Hayne Road posted its own closing signs in early October. The signs advertised a closing sale, including a 25% discount, but did not provide a last day. No employee count or confirmed layoff total has been released for that store.
That closure is especially noticeable because Castle Hayne is a rural, fast-growing part of New Hanover County with relatively few full-service grocery choices. The closest alternatives identified by local reporting are Food Lion stores at 2601 Castle Hayne Road in Wrightsboro and 3211 Enterprise Drive in Northchase.
Switching supermarkets can be more than a minor inconvenience for households without flexible transportation. It may mean rearranging rides, shopping less often, or relying more heavily on smaller nearby stores that carry a narrower selection of fresh food.
What shoppers should know
Fresh Foods IGA continues to operate other stores in southeastern North Carolina, so this is not a chainwide shutdown. The two locations also announced their plans separately: Castle Hayne displayed closing signs in October, while Chadbourn announced its November liquidation weeks later.
Because neither store has supplied a firm final date, shoppers should check locally before making a special trip or waiting until late November to use the stores. Inventory and department hours can change quickly during liquidation sales.
For both communities, the bigger change is the loss of a nearby full-service supermarket. Other stores remain within reach, but regular customers may face a longer drive, a different weekly route, or fewer choices for fresh food and prepared meals.
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