Tops Markets owners are preparing to file for bankruptcy according to recent reports. When you start reading a couple of issues raise a red flag. One thing that caught my eye was tops has 14 stores within 15 miles of the city of Syracuse. seems to be overkill to me. The total number of people employed by Tops is more than 15,000 and 178 Total stores in the Northwestern United States.

Bi-Lo LLC, the company that owns Winn-Dixie is another grocery chain that is expected to file for bankruptcy in the month of March.

The issues facing the industry first and foremost are the competition from the big box stores and online grocers have hurt sales across the country. Case in point for Tops sales dropped when the United States government cut food-stamp subsidies, those users account for 10 percent of the chain's annual revenue according to the Bloomberg report

Tops have changed hands several times since 2007. Ahold, an international food retail conglomerate based in the Netherlands, sold Tops to  Morgan Stanley Private Equity in 2007. In 2013 Tops management bought out Morgan Stanley private equity.

More From 96.1 The Eagle