ShopRite has a spate of store closures planned for the New York state Capital Region. 

The supermarket operator is closing locations in Albany, Colonie, Niskayuna, Slingerlands and North Greenbush, New York, Wakefern Food Corp., the grocer-owned cooperative that oversees the ShopRite banner, confirmed to Grocery Dive.

“We entered the marketplace a little over a decade ago to bring a quality supermarket to the area. Unfortunately, we have not been able to sustain the level of sales needed to keep the stores operating today,” Karen Meleta, chief communications officer of Wakefern, said in an emailed statement. 

The stores will close on or around Dec. 9, Meleta said. 

Local news outlets reported the closures affect five stores. Due to the store closures, an estimated 500 employees will lose their jobs, Albany newspaper the Times Union reported. 

Last year, ShopRite shuttered its store in Waterbury, Connecticut. In 2021, ShopRite closed a location on Long Island and two stores in the Hudson Valley, per local news reports. 

Amid the store closures, ShopRite has also opened and renovated several locations. So far this year, the supermarket chain has debuted four new locations in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania; Fair Lawn, New Jersey; Woolwich Township, New Jersey; and Elmsford, New York, as well as celebrated the reopening of two stores — one in Staten Island and another in Glassboro, New Jersey, per company news updates. 

This week, ShopRite will open a supermarket in Sussex, New Jersey, that is the first in the chain to include a hardware store-within-a-store.

Wakefern announced in May plans to put tech-enabled sampling kiosks in 95 ShopRite and The Fresh Grocer stores. ShopRite has also been rolling out its Fresh to Table concept, which focuses on grab-and-go offerings and meal solutions, to several stores. 

ShopRite has nearly 280 supermarkets located throughout New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland.