The Charlotte suburbs will be witnessing the opening of the first two Publix Super Markets stores. Come Wednesday, the 49,000 square foot stores will be opened to the residents. Publix had announced that it would be introducing a Charlotte division with hopes of expanding and opening more stores in future.

The two store locations are being opened ahead of schedule – two months to be exact. Publix expects to open another location in Ballantyne come late 2013 or 2014. The state of North Carolina is set to see further expansions across the state with Publix planning to increase its operations.

Metro Market Studies carried out a survey earlier this year and placed Harris Teeter as the number 1 supermarket with 22.7% market share in Charlotte followed closely at 21.6% Food Lion and coming in third is Wal-Mart at 19.1% in market share.

Lakeland, Florida- based Publix Super Markets Inc. is an employee-owned supermarket chain with operations in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida and now North Carolina. The chain has around 1,056 store locations and employs more than 140,000. Also in its portfolio are cooking schools, and manufacturing facilities for their own Publix brand of products. The Publix brand of products include; dairy, food products, bakery and deli. Publix has under its belt several local, philanthropic and national awards. These include being chosen one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” by Fortune for the years 1998 through 2012. In 2002 it was chosen as one of the country’s Outstanding Employers of Older Workers by Experience Works, and Computerworld, which chose the chain as one of the Best Places to Work in IT from 2005 to 2010 among other numerous awards.