South Auburn is losing a major supermarket outlet.

Quality Food Centers, a grocery store fixture in the Muckleshoot Shopping Center for 15 years, officially will close its doors at 5 p.m. Saturday. Before it was a QFC, the spot was a Piggly Wiggly grocery store for many years.

A company spokesperson said the “underperforming” store could no longer sustain itself in a challenging economy.

“It’s losing money, therefore we cannot continue to operate that way,” said Kristin Maas, QFC public affairs director. “We have to consider our business and our employees. We have to make sure we take care of our business. … Unfortunately, this store was not performing to the level we needed in order to keep it open. … Even if we updated our store, we wouldn’t do enough volume for a return on the investment.”

Maas said the store is “optimistic” that it will be able to offer all 28 of its Auburn store associates positions at other QFC stores in King County.

Rollin Fatland, public relations representative for the Muckleshoot Tribe, said the tribe will explore its options to secure another tenant for the spacious building.

Major Pete Lewis called the closure in one of the city’s low-income, isolated neighborhoods “bothersome,” a blow to south-end shoppers who now must travel farther along busy Auburn Way to get their groceries and supplies. The loss will be especially hard on the less mobile elderly, he said.

Lewis hopes QFC will consider other potential sites in Auburn, but was given no assurances of an aggressive plan after talking to QFC President Donna Giordano and a representative from the company’s real estate division.

“It’s not the commitment to the neighborhood I thought we would get,” Lewis said of the abandonment.

“We have some fine locations on the south end of town where a QFC or quality store could go,” Lewis said.

Auburn follows the recent closure of a QFC in Covington.

The Auburn closure joins a trend of chain-wide store shutdowns in recent years for the Ohio-based company. In 2005, QFC closed stores located in Federal Way, Midway, Burien, Rainier Beach and Vancouver due to poor sales.

The announcement leaves 45 QFC stores still operating in King Country and 72 in Washington and Oregon, including five in the Portland area.

QFC was established in Seattle more than 30 years ago, and emerged as a high-end grocer offering quality fresh foods and gourmet goods.

Fred Meyer bought the chain in 1997. A year later, Cincinnati-based Kroger Co., one of the nation’s largest grocery operators, bought Fred Meyer.