Andalusia’s new Piggly Wiggly held its soft opening yesterday and plans to have a grand opening mid July.

“We want to get our associates back to working and get them familiar with the equipment,” Manager Chantz Robertson said. “We are ready for customers to come back, though.”

There are some slight changes to the store once known as Winn Dixie that were made for improved customer convenience.

“All of the shelves in the store were lowered to 67 inches,” Robertson said. “The owner and I asked around and did our research and noticed that a lot of people can’t even reach the top shelf, so since we lowered them. We hope that will increase customer satisfaction.”

Piggly Wiggly will also introduce all types of pet food to include food for livestock, horses, goldfish, chicken feed and rabbit food along with dog food and cat food.

“We started to notice that people have a lot of different companion animals other than dogs and cats,” Robertson said. “We want to make it to where customers can have a one stop shopping experience instead of having to travel out of the way to get these types of pet foods.”

Robertson said that all of the departments have remained the same in the store and all of the department heads are the same.

“We still have the fresh foods from our deli and fresh produce,” Robertson said. “We have a great staff with us and I told all of the employees that wanted to stay that they could stay. We have all the same fresh foods and the same great prices.”

Piggly Wiggly will also have its beer and wine license by Mon., May 21.

Piggly Wiggly Owner Tim Pifer said that he is ready to serve the community.

“We are still the same warm store that is ready to serve the community,” Pifer said. “We wanted to get open as quick as we could so we could serve the people of Covington County.”

Piggly Wiggly will be open every day from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.