In May 2014, Helados Thrifty, the licensed purveyor in Mexico, had 184 locations in the northern and central Mexican states of Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sonora, Sinaloa, Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit, and the State of Mexico. There are plans to expand throughout Mexico via the sale of additional franchises. All Thrifty ice cream sold in Mexico is produced by the El Monte, California, plant. In October 2015, Walgreens announced that it will acquire Rite Aid, but said that it had not yet made a decision whether it would continue to carry any product line that is sold by Rite Aid, which is not currently distributed by Walgreens. Thrifty Ice Cream customers are concerned that Walgreens is going to discontinue carrying their beloved ice cream. After the Walgreens deal was not approved by regulators, it was announced on Feb. 20, 2018 that Albertsons and Rite Aid will merge. In May 2018, Albertsons announced that it plans to sell the Thrifty branded ice cream at its groceries stores (such as Vons and Safeway), but the announcement left many questions unanswered, such as would it keep the Thrifty manufacturing facility in El Monte, would it continue to use its current ice cream manufacturing recipes, would it keep the in-store scoop shops or would it keep the current price structure. Some Thrifty Ice cream customers are concerned that Albertsons may sell the plant and that the "new" Thrifty Ice Cream would be identical to the Lucerne and Signature Select store brands but just packaged in a different box. In August 2018, Rite Aid announced that it had decided to call off its proposed merger with Albertsons and remain independent for the moment. In May 2019, Rite Aid announced that it had expanded the distribution of prepackaged 48-ounce containers of Thrifty branded ice cream in up to eight out of 23 available flavors to Rite Aid stores in Idaho, Oregon and Washington. At the time of the announcement, there are no plans to sell ice cream by the scoop at those new stores outside of California. Two months later, Rite Aid announced that they plan to expand the distribution of Thrifty Ice Cream in 48-ounce pre-packaged containers to select Rite Aid stores in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania on a trial basis starting in July.