Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 16, 1994 TAG: 9404180134
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
The Thriftee Group Inc., based in Roanoke County, said Friday it has given customers of its Thriftee Pharmacy at 937 Apperson Drive the legally required 30-day notice that the store is closing and prescription records are being transferred to a nearby Revco drug store. The store has had about 13,000 prescription customers over the past six years, the company said .
Ed Buchholz, president of the Thriftee Group, said the store no longer fits into the company's business plans. The company will become strictly a mail-order prescription business serving diabetics, he said.
Thriftee's 7-year-old mail-order business has 57 employees at its headquarters location on Starkey Road, Buchholz said. Most of them are involved in processing insurance claims for customers, he said.
Buchholz said Thriftee has 20,000 mail-order customers nationally. It sells testing strips, insulin pumps, syringes and other products needed by diabetics.
Thriftee is one of five corporations operating under Universal Self Care, a holding company also based in Roanoke County. Universal's sales last year were about $20 million. Universal, whose stock is traded on the Nasdaq market as UNSELF, includes Sugar-Free Centers, a diabetic supply firm in California, which merged this year with the Roanoke County firm.
by CNB