Come the first of March, Malvern based Acme Markets will have two fewer Chester stores.

The company announced last week Acme stores at the intersection of Route 202 and Street Road in Westtown and in the Whiteland Town Center shopping plaza in Exton will be shuttered. Both stores, according to company spokesman, were unprofitable and will be closed when the lease expires mid-February. The 120 employees impacted by the closure will be given the opportunity to move to other Acme stores.

Once the leading grocery store chain in the Delaware Valley, Acme is in a fight to the death battle for customers and market share with aggressive newcomers like Giant and Wegmans, and superstores like Walmart and Target. According to the Philadelphia Business Journal, the chain is now No. 3 in the marketplace behind Giant & ShopRite.

The closure of the company’s Westtown and Exton stores leaves stores in Avondale, Oxford, Thorndale, West Chester, Paoli, Phoenixville and Chester Springs as the remaining Acme Market stores in Chester County.

Now owned by Albertsons, the supermarket chain based in Boise, Idaho with 1,119 supermarkets located in 29 U.S. states and private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management of New York, Acme Markets has struggled to find its identity in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Philly.com reports the chain has no other plans to close any of their remaining 120 Delaware Valley stores. Instead, a company spokesman said, nine Acme stores will be remodeled and updated in 2014.

For more information on Acme’s Westtown and Exton closure here or here.