Houchens Industries is returning to its grocery store roots with its latest acquisition.

The Bowling Green conglomerate has signed a letter of intent to buy Jasper, Ind.-based Buehler Foods Inc., operator of 22 grocery stores in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky.

Terms of the deal were not released and the sale is pending the last phase.

“We’re excited about the potential of adding (Buehler Foods),” said Alan Larsen, Houchens director of marketing and merchandising.

Larsen deferred other comment to Buehler Foods officials, who did not return phone calls.

According to a news release and the company’s Web site, Buehler Foods has more than 1,500 employees.

The family-owned grocery business started in Jasper in 1940. Twenty-one of its stores are in Indiana and Illinois, with one Kentucky store in Henderson.

Houchens traces its roots to 1917, when company founder Ervin Houchens opened his first grocery store in Glasgow.

Employee-owned Houchens has diversified its holdings after selling tobacco subsidiary Commonwealth Brands to Imperial Tobacco Group PLC for $1.9 billion in 2007.

Houchens has made acquisitions in industries as diverse as financial services and sun tan product distribution, but remains a major owner of grocery stores, with more than 200 grocery stores under such banners as Sav-A-Lot, Food Giant, IGA, Piggly Wiggly and Mad Butcher.