GNC announced Tuesday that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and was planning to close several stores. The company locally joins the ranks of J.C. Penney, Stage Stores (Bealls), and Tuesday Morning, all filing for bankruptcy protection after being pushed over the edge by weeks of closed stores during the pandemic. There are three GNC locations in the Amarillo area, Westgate Mall, Bell Plaza and Wolfin Village.

The nutrition and wellness store released an initial list of 248 stores it would permanently close in the US, including 219 US locations and 29 in Canada.  Seven Texas locations are closing. None of the Amarillo locations are on the initial list, however as the press release states, this is an initial listing meaning more could follow.  As part of the bankruptcy, the retailer said it plans to "accelerate the closure of at least 800 to 1,200 stores." Many of the closures were previously announced and the liquidation started, the retailer said. See the initial list of closing GNC stores here.

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In November 2018, GNC officials had announced that they would close up to 900 stores over the next three years in the U.S. and Canada as leases expire and in July 2019 said it planned to focus the closings on mall locations. According to their website the company had approximately 5,200 retail locations in the U.S. and 7,300 locations globally as of March 31. It said the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the need to file for bankruptcy protection.

In 2019, GNC net sales were $2.1 billion, down from $2.7 billion four years earlier. Much of that sales decrease has come as health consumers have increasingly turned to purchasing vitamins and other nutritional products online.

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