Price Chopper to Merge With Local Pharmacy; Big Y Relocates Pharmacy

Price Chopper Supermarkets will merge with Apple Community Pharmacy, a family-owned area business located at 3 Hemphill Place in Malta, N.Y., on Jan. 15, following what the grocer called “many months of planning.” At that time, Apple Pharmacy’s current owner, Robert Russell, RPh, and his 15-member staff will become Price Chopper associates.

“We look forward to providing the same outstanding personal and professional services that our neighbors have come to expect from us,” said Russell, whose new position will be pharmacy manager at the forthcoming Malta Price Chopper pharmacy, which is still under construction. “Given the support of Price Chopper’s pharmacy division, which serves as a resource to the chain’s 77 in-store pharmacies, I am confident that this merger will help us to leverage our expertise and further benefit our customers.”

Added Vincent Mainella, Price Chopper’s VP of pharmacy, “This merger will bolster the continued growth of our pharmacy operations as we expand and enhance the menu of products and services that we offer.”

The Schenectady, N.Y.-based grocer will operate its newest pharmacy inside Apple Community Pharmacy’s existing location, which will feature the supermarket chain’s programs, including Diabetes AdvantEdge, free antibiotics, Rx AdvantEdge, Housecalls deliveries, private counseling services, immunization and compounding, until the Pharmacy and Home Health Care Center within the Malta supermarket is ready. Price Chopper expects the pharmacy to open in late spring, with no interruption in services. Hours of operation will stay the same.

The family-owned Golub Corp. owns and operates 128 Price Chopper supermarkets in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Vermont. Golub’s more than 24,000 teammates collectively own 52 percent of the company’s privately held stock, making it one of the nation’s largest privately held corporations that is predominantly employee-owned.

In other pharmacy news, after operating at the site of a former Rite Aid store in Stafford Springs, Conn., for three and a half years, a Big Y pharmacy has relocated to a newly renovated space within the company’s Stafford Springs supermarket.

Registered pharmacist Janice Flynn and her colleague, Deborah Rudolf, began working at the new location on Jan. 9 Pharmacy hours are Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

As it has in the past, the new Big Y Pharmacy will continue to hold special wellness events such as a total-cholesterol and blood pressure screening on Jan. 13 from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., and a glucose screening and body fat percentage test on Jan. 22 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Additionally, flu shots are available at any Big Y Pharmacy, which further offer programs enabling consumers to get free antibiotics and free prenatal vitamin programs.

Springfield, Mass.-based Big Y operates 61 stores, including 35 pharmacies, throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut. The Family-owned and –operated company employs more than 10,000 associates.