Hills Food Stores

What Hills Food Stores does

Hills Food Stores is a privately held regional supermarket chain operating five brick-and-mortar grocery locations across Southeastern North Carolina and Northeastern South Carolina. Its store network comprises North Whiteville, South Whiteville, Lake Waccamaw, and Shallotte in NC, plus Loris in SC, with the headquarters co-located at the Shallotte store at 5001 Main St #3. The legal entity is Farmer's Market of Shallotte, Inc., and the company has operated continuously under the Hill family since Otto Hill opened the original store in Whiteville, NC in 1930; it was formally established as Hills Supermarkets in 1946 when Dewey Hill returned from Navy service. The company grew to a peak of 39 stores in the 1960s-1980s but divested most locations and its Lumberton, NC distribution center in 1991, consolidating to the current five-store footprint. Founder Dewey Hill passed away in June 2023; post-2023 ownership and succession are not publicly disclosed.

The company's core offering is conventional supermarket retail — groceries, fresh produce, meat, bakery, deli, dairy, frozen foods, and household items — supplemented by expert in-store butchery and an emphasis on locally-sourced produce from regional vendors. Digital touchpoints are layered on top of the physical stores: the Hills Deals loyalty program (powered by AppCard, registration by mobile phone, points-based rewards with 90-day expiry), digital manufacturer coupon clipping, weekly online circulars, a ShoptoCook-powered recipe database, email newsletters, and SMS marketing (up to 8 messages/month). No mobile app, e-commerce storefront, or in-house delivery operation is offered; the website functions as a marketing and loyalty-management layer rather than a transactional channel.

Revenue is generated transactionally across all five stores with no public price disclosure, supplemented by a loyalty rewards mechanism that drives repeat visitation but is not a standalone paid subscription. Hills Food Stores does not accept outside investment, has no subsidiaries, and operates with no disclosed headcount. Its customer base is mass-market individual and family shoppers in rural and small-town communities, with primary differentiation centered on hometown identity, fresh and locally-sourced produce, and free custom meat cutting.

Name

Hills Food Stores

Legal name

Farmer's Market of Shallotte, Inc.

Website

https://hillsfoodstores.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1930

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Hills Food Stores is a privately held regional supermarket chain operating five brick-and-mortar grocery stores across Southeastern North Carolina and Northeastern South Carolina, serving local communities with groceries, fresh meat, produce, and a digital loyalty program.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Supermarket / Grocery Retail

NAICS

Supermarkets and Other Grocery Retailers (except Convenience Retailers) (44511), Supermarkets and Other Grocery Retailers (except Convenience Retailers) (445110), Food and Beverage Retailers (445)

SIC

Retail-Grocery Stores (5411), Retail-Food Stores (5400)

akta.pro primary industry

Full-Line Supermarkets (National/Regional Chains) (CRAHAAAA)

Keywords

• Grocery retail
• Supermarket chain
• Fresh produce
• Loyalty program
• Digital coupons

Headquarters

HQ city

Whiteville

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices5 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Supply Chain, Operations, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Grocery Retail Sales: Transaction-based sales of groceries, fresh produce, meat, and general merchandise through 5 physical retail locations.
2. Hills Deals Loyalty Program: Digital loyalty program where members earn points on purchases, redeemable for discounts on future transactions. Points expire 90 days after earning.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Hills Food Stores operates a regional supermarket chain of 5 physical grocery stores across Southeastern North Carolina and Northeastern South Carolina, selling groceries, fresh meat, produce, bakery, deli, dairy, frozen foods, beverages, health and beauty, and household items. The retail offering is supported by digital services including the Hills Deals loyalty rewards program, weekly promotional circulars, manufacturer digital coupons, and an online recipe database.

Product overview

Hills Food Stores operates as a regional supermarket chain with a single unified retail offering across 5 store locations. The product portfolio centers on traditional grocery retail (groceries, meat, produce, bakery, deli, dairy, frozen foods, beverages, household items) enhanced by digital services including the Hills Deals loyalty program, Weekly Ad circulars, Digital Coupons platform, and a Recipe database. All digital services are powered by the AppCard loyalty platform and ShoptoCook recipe platform. No modular platform architecture exists; the business operates conventional retail stores with ancillary digital customer engagement tools.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Hills Food Stores (Grocery Retail) Regional supermarket chain operating 5 store locations in Southeastern North Carolina and Northeastern South Carolina, offering groceries, fresh meat, produce, bakery, deli, dairy, frozen foods, beverages, health and beauty items, and household essentials, with emphasis on locally-sourced produce and in-store custom butcher services.
• Hills Deals Loyalty Program Digital loyalty rewards program for Hills Food Stores customers, allowing members to clip digital coupons and earn points on grocery purchases redeemable for discounts on future transactions; accessible without a physical loyalty card.
• Weekly Ad Recurring weekly promotional circular featuring discounted items across all store departments, published on hillsfoodstores.com.
• Digital Coupons Digital manufacturer coupon platform integrated with the Hills Deals loyalty program, enabling members to clip and redeem coupons from brands such as Tropicana, Capri Sun, and Philadelphia Cream Cheese directly to their loyalty accounts.
• Recipe Database Online recipe database offering thousands of meal ideas and holiday recipes across multiple dietary categories, available to shoppers via hillsfoodstores.com.

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration1 record

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights3 records

Direct peers

• Ingles Markets: Asheville, NC-based regional supermarket chain operating across Western NC, Upstate SC, Georgia, and Tennessee with a strong local-sourcing identity. Comparable as a Carolinas-rooted, multi-store regional grocer with similar fresh-and-community positioning.
• Lowe's Foods: North Carolina-based regional supermarket chain owned by Aldi, emphasizing fresh, local sourcing and community roots — the closest analog to Hills' hometown-supermarket positioning in the same state.
• Bi-Lo: Discount supermarket chain with historical presence across the Carolinas and the broader Southeast. Comparable as a value-positioned regional grocer competing in similar small-format and rural communities.
• Piggly Wiggly: Franchised supermarket brand with strong presence across the Carolinas, particularly in small-town and rural markets. Closely comparable to Hills' small-format, community-anchored supermarket footprint.

Broad incumbents

• Food Lion: Ahold Delhaize-owned regional supermarket chain with deep penetration across North and South Carolina. Directly comparable to Hills because both compete for the same grocery shoppers in the Carolinas, though Food Lion operates hundreds of stores versus Hills' five.
• Publix Super Markets: Employee-owned Southeastern US supermarket chain expanding into the Carolinas. Comparable on operating model (employee-oriented, fresh-led, full-service supermarket) though significantly larger and more affluent-skewing than Hills.
• ALDI: German hard-discount grocery chain actively expanding stores across the Carolinas. Comparable as a primary competitive threat compressing margins for regional full-service supermarkets like Hills.
• Walmart Supercenter: National mass retailer with full grocery departments and aggressive expansion in the Carolinas. Sets the price-anchor that any small regional supermarket chain must compete against on commodity grocery items.
• Harris Teeter: Kroger-owned upscale-leaning supermarket chain headquartered in Matthews, NC, operating throughout the Carolinas. Comparable as a regional full-service supermarket competing for overlapping fresh-and-local customer occasions.

Emerging players

• Lidl: European discount grocer rapidly opening stores in North and South Carolina. Comparable as a new-format competitor entering Hills' core regional geography and pressuring fresh-and-price positioning.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/hillsfoodstores
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/hills-food-stores

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Hills Food Stores