Where Have All The Honey Farms Gone? Changes Coming To MA Chain

WORCESTER, MA — A chain of stores whose roots date back more than 100 years in Worcester is going through changes — again.

The Waltham-based company Global Partners LP bought the 33-store Honey Farms chain in 2017 for $36 million, bringing most of the chain's stores into the company's portfolio of brands that includes Alltown Fresh and XtraMart.

Global Partners spokeswoman Jaclyn Harrison confirmed this week that the company recently sold 12 Honey Farms locations to a new owner. Each one will be converted to a new brand called Family Farms. Harrison said she could not name the addresses of the 12 stores due to the "ongoing nature of the transaction," but public records indicate locations in Natick, Marlborough and Worcester will all change.

Last week, the Worcester License Commission approved name changes for the stores along Park Avenue, Belmont Street, Pleasant Street and Grove Street. The Natick location opened under the new Family Farms brand this week.

The chain that would eventually become Honey Farms began in Worcester in the early 1920s as a small grocery store along Grafton Street owned by the Iandoli family. The company eventually grew to open local grocery stores under the names Super Discount Food Warehouse, Iandoli, Food Village and Food World. Those supermarkets were sold in 1985, later being acquired by Shaw's.

The company purchased the former Honey Farms Dairy Stores and Millbrook Farms stores in the late 1960s, and that became the focus after the grocery chain sale, according to Matrix Capital Markets Group Inc., which brokered the 2017 sale. The Iandoli had a hand in operating the chain until the Global Partners acquisition.