So Kroger owns an array of Grocery Store brands. Albertsons own an array of Grocery Store brands. It seems to me like only Albertsons is selling stores. Not one Kroger.

Hundreds of Safeways, Vons, Albertsons, Carrs and Tom Thumb stores to be sold. Kroger is selling off looks like all of their Marianos and Harris Teeter stores. Those are their coolest stores (I've only seen them in Illinois).

Who the heck is going to buy these stores? The Bay Area is mostly Safeway's and Lucky stores including my main Safeway in San Leandro, one of my favorites. Kroger has Ralph's in L.A. None of them are closing.

[www.kget.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/09/2024 09:51PM by vision63.

Here we go again.

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It is what it is.

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N-OS X-tasy!
Here we go again.

I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon Fresh didn't make a play for some of those locations.

Big news in Chicago. [www.nbcchicago.com]
Being bought by C&S
[en.wikipedia.org]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/09/2024 11:04PM by Black.

This is going to be a big mess.

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vision63
This is going to be a big mess.

Yep! C&S is headquartered in this region and its wholesale operation actually is a supplier to some of the stores in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic that compete with some of the stores being sold off.

In our small, rural county, there are 3 supermarkets - 1 Safeway and 2 QFC (Kroger) - both of the QFC are on the list. This will leave us with only one game in town. Fortunately Washington State has joined the suit in opposition to this - hope it is upheld.

We used to have Harris Teeter & Kroger in the area. I preferred the HT stores.

Then the two agreed to sell certain locations to each other and all our HTs became Krogers.

Didn't know they had merged.

Haven't been in a Kroger for a long time.
Do they still junk up their aisles with third-party cardboard display cases?

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vicrock
In our small, rural county, there are 3 supermarkets - 1 Safeway and 2 QFC (Kroger) - both of the QFC are on the list. This will leave us with only one game in town. Fortunately Washington State has joined the suit in opposition to this - hope it is upheld.

The story says they're selling them. In theory the stores will still be there. Sounds risky.

WA state is suing to block the merger because it would effectively kill any competition in most of easter WA, and parts of western WA.

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vicrock,

Selling doesn't mean closing. They could even be sold to the employees.

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Ed (modelamac)

Trying to figure out some people is like trying to smell the number 9.

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vicrock
In our small, rural county, there are 3 supermarkets - 1 Safeway and 2 QFC (Kroger) - both of the QFC are on the list. This will leave us with only one game in town. Fortunately Washington State has joined the suit in opposition to this - hope it is upheld.

My friend had only a small Kroger in her little hometown in central Illinois, and it closed. Hour drive to Springfield for anyone needing to grocery shop. Fortunately the Dollar General expanded its groceries

They tried to have Harris Teeters here in Atlanta a good while back, but they later closed them all.

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Roswell, GA (Atlanta suburb)

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rgG
They tried to have Harris Teeters here in Atlanta a good while back, but they later closed them all.

I noticed C&S who's supposed to buy the Chicago stores acquired a grocery wholesaler not long ago and immediately closed it.

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rgG
They tried to have Harris Teeters here in Atlanta a good while back, but they later closed them all.

I'd go sometimes to a Harris Teeter on Briarcliff. I'd go to Cub Foods, Big Star, A&P (on Ponce). Atlanta had a lot of grocery store chains.

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modelamac
vicrock,

Selling doesn't mean closing. They could even be sold to the employees.

As Black has posted, they already have a buyer. That is C & S Wholesale, a food distributer which has purchased supermarkets in the past. Apparently they agreed to this last September. Currently C & S owns the Piggly Wiggly and Grand Union brands.

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JoeH

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modelamac
vicrock,

Selling doesn't mean closing. They could even be sold to the employees.

As Black has posted, they already have a buyer. That is C & S Wholesale, a food distributer which has purchased supermarkets in the past. Apparently they agreed to this last September. Currently C & S owns the Piggly Wiggly and Grand Union brands.

I don't know if C&S is buying stores in other regions than Chicago.

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Black

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JoeH

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modelamac
vicrock,

Selling doesn't mean closing. They could even be sold to the employees.

As Black has posted, they already have a buyer. That is C & S Wholesale, a food distributer which has purchased supermarkets in the past. Apparently they agreed to this last September. Currently C & S owns the Piggly Wiggly and Grand Union brands.

I don't know if C&S is buying stores in other regions than Chicago.

The story posted last September was that they had committed to purchasing 413 stores, with up to an additional 237 stores under a contingency in the purchase agreement. There is an additional clause that if the number required by the FTC to be sold off exceeded the 650 that Kroger and Albertsons agreed to in the SEC filing for the merger the deal and merger would be cancelled.

[foodtradenews.com]

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Black
...I don't know if C&S is buying stores in other regions than Chicago.

Well - according to local news, that appears to be the case in San Diego.

Backstory: the most common Grocery stores here are "Albertsons", "Ralphs" (owned by Kroger since 1998), and "Vons"; Albertsons merged with Vons back in 2015 (but the Vons stores kept operating under their original name), and some of the "Vons" rebranded as "Pavilions" - which are supposed to be slightly higher-end version of "Vons".

Bottomline: the major Grocery stores here are owned by either Kroger or Albertsons, so if a Kroger-Albertsons merger occurs, then that corporation would essentially have a monopoly on Grocery stores in most neighborhoods here. So - according to the above linked article, a mix of the Albertsons, Vons, and Pavilions stores in San Diego will be sold off to C&S.

OK, yes, it seems C&S is supposed to buy all 579 stores.

I did some additional research and my findings revealed that this was mentioned in the article linked in the OP. No charge this time.

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Black
I did some additional research and my findings revealed that this was mentioned in the article linked in the OP. No charge this time.

Well, the way vision63 presented it in the OP shows he didn't read and comprehend the article he linked. So easy to think of looking for other articles based on that.

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JoeH

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Black
I did some additional research and my findings revealed that this was mentioned in the article linked in the OP. No charge this time.

Well, the way vision63 presented it in the OP shows he didn't read and comprehend the article he linked. So easy to think of looking for other articles based on that.

It's on such a janky site slinging videos and ads on my iPhone. I read as much as I could. You miss the "x" and then you're on another site trying to get me to lose weight.

We went through this nonsense in 2015 when Albertsons and Safeway merged and sold off a bunch of stores (along with their rotting merchandise) to a couple of wholesalers and one big Washington State retailer (Haggen). After transforming about 146 stores to the Haggen branding, they promptly went bankrupt and the stores sat empty.

Might want to read and heed:

[sandiegofreepress.org]

In the end, many of the rebranded Haggen stores were repurchased and rebranded as Vons/Safeway/Albertsons and so the original sale of the stores to avoid monopoly situation was a farce. It will be so this time, too. Someone will make lots of money, but it won't be the consumer…

And consumers lose twice, since there will theoretically now be a Kroger/Albertsons/Vons/Safeway conglomerate vs Walmart left to compete for your grocery dollar. And you can bet the competition will be fierce. Right… Sure, other smaller independents will continue chugging along, for those willing to pay more for the same groceries.

The FTC needs to slap this down once and for all, and slap it down hard.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2024 12:57PM by bfd.

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ztirffritz
WA state is suing to block the merger because it would effectively kill any competition in most of easter WA, and parts of western WA.

If the business decision for a merger is because they can't make money being in competition then blocking the merger doesn't make sense. It could just force them to close down the non-performing stores thus killing competition in the area that the politicians were trying to prevent.

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bfd
The FTC needs to slap this down once and for all, and slap it down hard.

Well, the original plan to sell off 413 stores was slapped down by the FTC, and the merger currently is being challenged in court. The increase to 579 stores was in response to the complaints that too few were together in some areas to be viable after being sold off.

C & S does have some solid finances, but personally I would be against them acquiring more stores. I don't know if any of the Kroger or Albertsons are union, but C & S is definitely non and anti-union. They have a bad rep in this area, one of the few places that unemployment will not give people grief about not accepting jobs at their local distribution center.

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JoeH

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modelamac
vicrock,

Selling doesn't mean closing. They could even be sold to the employees.

As Black has posted, they already have a buyer. That is C & S Wholesale, a food distributer which has purchased supermarkets in the past. Apparently they agreed to this last September. Currently C & S owns the Piggly Wiggly and Grand Union brands.

I'm not familiar with the Grand Union brand, but you could do a lot worse than to have at least some of the soon-to-be-purchased stores become Piggly Wigglys.

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If either chain were struggling financially this would be true, but I believe they’re both solvent and profitable. They just want MORE profits. There’s nothing wrong with wanting more profits but forming a monopoly to stifle competition is an issue.

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bobinmurphy

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ztirffritz
WA state is suing to block the merger because it would effectively kill any competition in most of easter WA, and parts of western WA.

If the business decision for a merger is because they can't make money being in competition then blocking the merger doesn't make sense. It could just force them to close down the non-performing stores thus killing competition in the area that the politicians were trying to prevent.

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