MILWAUKEE, WI — Meijer Inc. plans to expand its footprint into Wisconsin rapidly.

“We expect to concentrate a lot of our expansion the next few years in Wisconsin,” the retailer's co-CEO Hank Meijer told an audience of Milwaukee business leaders recently.

Meijer said he expected the Michigan retailer to open 10 to 12 stores a year, and a significant number of those will be in Wisconsin over the next several years as the company expands beyond Milwaukee, according to a Milwaukee Business Journal story.

His speech to hundreds of business leaders at the Milwaukee Business Journal’s Power Breakfast on Friday, March 7, marked Meijer's first major appearance before a Milwaukee crowd.

The Walker-based retailer plans to open eight super centers in the Milwaukee area in the next two years. Those locations include Wauwatosa, Oak Creek, Kenosha and Grafton in 2015 and in Sussex, Greenfield, Waukesha and Janesville in 2016.

Meijer said the rapid growth in Wisconsin is unprecedented for the company.

"The company is expected to have a major impact on southeastern Wisconsin’s grocery market going head-to-head with longtime dominant player Roundy’s Inc., along with Sendik’s Food Markets, Woodman Food Markets and general merchandise national players Target and Walmart," wrote Mark Kass, editor-in-chief of the Milwaukee Business Journal, in his coverage of the speech.

In fall 2012, Meijer acquired a former Supervalu distribution center in Pleasant Prairie that is being expanded to serve both the Chicago and the Wisconsin markets. The retailer currently operates 204 stores in five states: Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Kentucky.