Musgrave may face competition in its attempt to buy the Londis group of stores in England, Scotland and Wales.
The food distribution and retail group announced a €57m offer for the 2,200 stores last week.
Distribution group NISA has appointed a sub-comittee of its board to consider a rival offer.
Over 250 of the 2000 Londis store owners have reportedly resisted the Musgrave bid because of their anger over payments Londis management will recieve as part of the deal.
The Times claims that four senior Londis executives paid themselves more than £7m in compensation payouts for renegotiating their contracts two weeks before they accepted the Musgrave offer.
Londis members are due to vote on the Musgrave proposal on December 30.
Musgrave said it continues to believe its offer is a good one, and is understood to be unhappy that NISA, an orgnisation which its own company Budgens is a member of, is looking at a rival bid.
