Kroger buys Albertson’s

[adkkev]

No Kroger or Albertsons stores in our area, or any of the stores under their umbrella.

 

[gopher101]

We have a fancy Tom Thumb and an Albertson's near us. They both have great rewards programs. We used to live close to Tom Thumb and Kroger but there's no Kroger near here. I really hope they don't close the Albertsons because it's the closest grocery store.

I think you might be my neighbor, or in my neighborhood. I go to the Tom thumb for quick runs. Or Burleson for my big runs.

 

[DodgerGirl]

i used to shop at Albertson's before they left Sacramento. I have a Safeway about a mile from my house, but I have Smart and Final and Bel Air the same distance. The Safeway is odd. They closed and the building sat vacant for about five years. Then they came back. I do buy gasoline at Safeway, but Walmart Neighborhood Market and Bel Air are my weekly grocery stops.

Is Bel-Air owned by a store named Nob Hill Foods? Because I happen to know that they also have a supermarket named Raley's. I know because my dad loves shopping at Raley's a lot and they have a lot of great sales. I used to go to Smart And Final a lot too only because my grandfather suddenly became obsessed with shopping there a lot and got my family shopping there too. What I predict is that Kroger will become king of the supermarket chains and will try to open some Kroger's stores in California much like Ralph's tried to do in Northern California but they failed

 

[HeatherC]

Albertsons owns Shaws and Star Market in New England so I'm curious to see what will happen.

I believe they are also merging with Krogers.

 

[RedAngie]

I’d love to have a Wegmans in our area…I think there is one in northern DE, so not close enough for regular grocery shopping.

Not quite yet. The first Wegmans in Delaware is set to open in about 10 days.

https://www.delawareonline.com/stor...opening-october-26-grocery-store/65405832007/

This location really isn’t convenient for me, but I’ll probably go occasionally. I’ve been to the two Wegmans in South Jersey in Cherry Hill and Mt. Laurel.

 

[easyas123]

Not quite yet. The first Wegmans in Delaware is set to open in about 10 days.

https://www.delawareonline.com/stor...opening-october-26-grocery-store/65405832007/

This location really isn’t convenient for me, but I’ll probably go occasionally. I’ve been to the two Wegmans in South Jersey in Cherry Hill and Mt. Laurel.

Thanks!

 

[bcla]

I grew up with Luckys in the 1960's and continued to shop there into the 1990's until the Lucky by me closed. Actually, the Lucky store I grew up with became Bonanza for a couple of years as Lucky experimented with "discount" grocery stores in the 1960's. They went back to Lucky.

Where I grew up, Lucky and Safeway were the big ones, although there were also a few independent and semi-independent supermarkets. I even recall the old Berkeley Co-Op. I don't remember the name of it, but I distinctly remember one store that was more or less independent, but tapped into a larger network for things like house brands.

Lucky was definitely an entrenched brand in Northern California. If there was any new entry, it would have been into the Southern California market. But there were Albertson's stores around here before the sale of Lucky. And when Albertson's bought out Lucky's parent company, I do remember how they seemed to either close or rebrand before Albertson's sold off to Save Mart and they rebranded back to Lucky California. Save Mart had a tough time breaking the market. I remember some locations that just called themselves "S-Mart". But there was still a lot of goodwill over the name.

It is weird with the local house brands though. Lucky used to have several house brands like "Lady Lee" but that wasn't brought back. They seem to tap into the Bayview Farms and Sunnyside Farms brands that are distributed to a number of different unreleased chains like Save Mart and Raley's.

 

[bcla]

Is Bel-Air owned by a store named Nob Hill Foods? Because I happen to know that they also have a supermarket named Raley's. I know because my dad loves shopping at Raley's a lot and they have a lot of great sales. I used to go to Smart And Final a lot too only because my grandfather suddenly became obsessed with shopping there a lot and got my family shopping there too. What I predict is that Kroger will become king of the supermarket chains and will try to open some Kroger's stores in California much like Ralph's tried to do in Northern California but they failed

That's all part of the Raley's group. Nob Hill tries to be more upscale.

 

[barkley]

A plus of being retired is I can go in the morning on weekdays. Even then there are "wandering aimless people" as my DH referes to some fellow shoppers.

you just have to avoid wednesday mornings-first day of the new ad PLUS it's direct deposit day for social security checks (i also avoid friday b/c most people get paid that day as well).

i see fewer wandering people in some of our stores these days b/c they've closed down the areas that had seating (no more interior benches by the door at walmart and several have eliminated the subways, mcdonalds and other places people could park themselves).

Nob Hill Foods? Because I happen to know that they also have a supermarket named Raley's

i miss nob hill-it was pricier but they had beautiful produce back in the day (i also miss nugget market-they had the most phenomenal deli). i remember when raley's was still a fairly small chain-the only time we would encounter one was when we traveled up through placerville ca and on to tahoe. the locals would call it 'tom's place' (b/c tom raley owned it).

 

[mrodgers]

I’d love to have a Wegmans in our area…I think there is one in northern DE, so not close enough for regular grocery shopping.

Wegmans is a lot of fun because we get to stop either picking up my daughter or dropping her off in Erie at school on the weekends. It's fun because there's so much cool stuff that I don't see in my one grocery store town.

I just don't know how people do it, I see them with their regular full cart grocery run. I don't know how anyone can afford to regularly grocery shop there.

I only have Giant Eagle, which is anywhere from 50% to 100% higher priced than Walmart. Wegmans is well above Giant Eagle prices.

My experience, a week's worth cart full at Walmart today is around $250-300. At Giant Eagle, that is at least $400 and can be near $500. I can't imagine what a full cart at Wegmans is for a week of feeding your family

 

[mrodgers]

No Kroger or Albertsons stores in our area, or any of the stores under their umbrella.

Same, since prior to 1995 when I started working at the Food Arena store, which previously had been Kroger. I don't know if it was the same store but just a name change. I only have experience of Kroger as a little kid. Food Arena was awesome, great prices. Then corporate Giant Eagle made plans to build a big store and offered a franchise to the owners of Food Arena who would never have been able to compete with a big one. We already had a small Giant Eagle, so Food Arena changed and I found myself working for Giant Eagle. We had a corporate store and just a few miles away now a private owned franchise of GE. We moved to the new one they built and they shut down both our little store and the corporate store.

They owners have since retired and no one took over so now it's a corporate store with no competition and prices skyrocketed.

I do miss Food Arena very much, which was on par with the old Kroger store in the same location prior to me turning 16 and working there.

 

[AvidDisReader]

The largest grocier in Chicagoland area is Jewel/Osco which just happens to be owned by Albertson's. So when I mentioned that Kroger is buying Albertson a good friend of mine said, well I guess that doesn't effect us as there are no Albertson's in Chicago land. Very awkward to explain to someone without insulting them that Albertson's is Jewel.

 

[tvguy]

Where I grew up, Lucky and Safeway were the big ones, although there were also a few independent and semi-independent supermarkets. I even recall the old Berkeley Co-Op. I don't remember the name of it, but I distinctly remember one store that was more or less independent, but tapped into a larger network for things like house brands.

Lucky was definitely an entrenched brand in Northern California. If there was any new entry, it would have been into the Southern California market. But there were Albertson's stores around here before the sale of Lucky. And when Albertson's bought out Lucky's parent company, I do remember how they seemed to either close or rebrand before Albertson's sold off to Save Mart and they rebranded back to Lucky California. Save Mart had a tough time breaking the market. I remember some locations that just called themselves "S-Mart". But there was still a lot of goodwill over the name.

It is weird with the local house brands though. Lucky used to have several house brands like "Lady Lee" but that wasn't brought back. They seem to tap into the Bayview Farms and Sunnyside Farms brands that are distributed to a number of different unreleased chains like Save Mart and Raley's.

Raleys/Bel Air/Nob Hill are the same company and own the Bayview Farms and Sunnyside Farms brands under a subsidiary known as "Super Stores"

 

[tvguy]

Is Bel-Air owned by a store named Nob Hill Foods? Because I happen to know that they also have a supermarket named Raley's. I know because my dad loves shopping at Raley's a lot and they have a lot of great sales. I used to go to Smart And Final a lot too only because my grandfather suddenly became obsessed with shopping there a lot and got my family shopping there too. What I predict is that Kroger will become king of the supermarket chains and will try to open some Kroger's stores in California much like Ralph's tried to do in Northern California but they failed

Raleys owns Nob Hill, Food Source and Bel Air Supermarkets. There are 78 Raleys, only 20 Nob Hills. They bought Nob Hill about 20 years ago.

 

[bcla]

Raleys/Bel Air/Nob Hill are the same company and own the Bayview Farms and Sunnyside Farms brands under a subsidiary known as "Super Stores"

Save Mart still seems to be using those. I had a hard time finding anything about that other than SSI was a partnership and Save Mart tried to get out of it over 2 decades ago.

https://www.supermarketnews.com/archive/save-mart-sues-raleys-dissolve-partnership​

SSI, which was founded in 1980, operates two dairies and a grocery and frozen-food warehouse with 750 employees and combined annual volume estimated at about $1 billion.​

​

Under terms of the partnership agreement, SSI is operated wholly independently from the partners' retail businesses, with an independent administrator responsible for day-to-day operations.​

​

The partnership originally included a third company, Bel Air Markets, Sacramento; however, when Raley's acquired Bel Air in 1992, it gained control of more than 50% of SSI's revenues and ownership, although less than two-thirds of the total, Michael J. Teel, president and chief executive officer of Raley's, told SN last week.​

I guess they must have come to some agreement since it's still around - this article is from 2008. I'm thinking that Save Mart adding Lucky's must have really increased their footprint.

https://www.dairyfoods.com/articles/84187-corporate-profile-super-store-industries​

SSI is the product of a partnership between three major competing grocery chains in northern California – Save Mart, Raley’s and Bel Air – and has two manufacturing sites for dairy, an 800,000-square-foot distribution center for frozen foods and dry grocery, and an ice plant that produces more than 200 tons of various retail pack ice on a daily basis. Simon says SSI’s sales are “well in excess of a billion dollars a year” overall, including dairy, grocery and frozen foods (DFR estimates dairy sales account for about half of the total).​

Save Mart tried getting in the Bay Area market in the 90s. I distinctly remember they had ads from actor Grant Goodeve (from Eight is Enough) trying to introduce them to customers outside of the Central Valley.

 

[tvguy]

Save Mart still seems to be using those. I had a hard time finding anything about that other than SSI was a partnership and Save Mart tried to get out of it over 2 decades ago.

https://www.supermarketnews.com/archive/save-mart-sues-raleys-dissolve-partnership​

SSI, which was founded in 1980, operates two dairies and a grocery and frozen-food warehouse with 750 employees and combined annual volume estimated at about $1 billion.​

​

Under terms of the partnership agreement, SSI is operated wholly independently from the partners' retail businesses, with an independent administrator responsible for day-to-day operations.​

​

The partnership originally included a third company, Bel Air Markets, Sacramento; however, when Raley's acquired Bel Air in 1992, it gained control of more than 50% of SSI's revenues and ownership, although less than two-thirds of the total, Michael J. Teel, president and chief executive officer of Raley's, told SN last week.​

I guess they must have come to some agreement since it's still around - this article is from 2008. I'm thinking that Save Mart adding Lucky's must have really increased their footprint.

https://www.dairyfoods.com/articles/84187-corporate-profile-super-store-industries​

SSI is the product of a partnership between three major competing grocery chains in northern California – Save Mart, Raley’s and Bel Air – and has two manufacturing sites for dairy, an 800,000-square-foot distribution center for frozen foods and dry grocery, and an ice plant that produces more than 200 tons of various retail pack ice on a daily basis. Simon says SSI’s sales are “well in excess of a billion dollars a year” overall, including dairy, grocery and frozen foods (DFR estimates dairy sales account for about half of the total).​

Save Mart tried getting in the Bay Area market in the 90s. I distinctly remember they had ads from actor Grant Goodeve (from Eight is Enough) trying to introduce them to customers outside of the Central Valley.

Not sure if they actually make all their dairy products anymore. They sold their dairy on Red Top Drive and I-80 in Fairfield to Producers dairy in 2018. Their website says Producers Dairy is one of their suppliers so maybe they pay Producers to provide dairy products under the Sunnyside Farms name. Sunnyside Farms does list having a dairy now in Turlock. I noticed Raleys/Bel Air do now also carry some Producers dairy products in their stores, along with Crystal (which is actually Foster Farms). Producers Dairy products used to be found mainly in 7-11's an CVS stores.

 

[bcla]

Not sure if they actually make all their dairy products anymore. They sold their dairy on Red Top Drive and I-80 in Fairfield to Producers dairy in 2018. Their website says Producers Dairy is one of their suppliers so maybe they pay Producers to provide dairy products under the Sunnyside Farms name. Sunnyside Farms does list having a dairy now in Turlock. I noticed Raleys/Bel Air do now also carry some Producers dairy products in their stores, along with Crystal (which is actually Foster Farms). Producers Dairy products used to be found mainly in 7-11's an CVS stores.

I'm guessing it's just a distribution center. One can always tell by looking at the dairy code on the packaging and looking it up. But we've lost a lot of dairies in California - especially Berkeley Farms which was part of Dean Foods.

 

[tvguy]

I'm guessing it's just a distribution center. One can always tell by looking at the dairy code on the packaging and looking it up. But we've lost a lot of dairies in California - especially Berkeley Farms which was part of Dean Foods.

Didn't know about Berkeley Farms, their website shows them still in business. They were another brand I only saw in mini-markets.

 

[bcla]

Didn't know about Berkeley Farms, their website shows them still in business. They were another brand I only saw in mini-markets.

Nah - they completely shut down two years ago. I remember when their processing/distribution point was in Emeryville up until maybe 2000. Quite a bit of what they sold was Dean Foods packaging.

https://www.ktvu.com/news/berkeley-farms-in-hayward-shutting-down-after-being-in-business-since-1910

They were just one of Dean Foods brands. When I looked up the plant codes on Trader Joe's milk in my area, it seemed to be either Berkeley Farms for conventional or Clover-Stornetta for organic label. But now I think it's probably Producer's or Foster Farms. It seems that Producer's bought out the Berkeley Farms trademark from Dean during their bankruptcy proceedings, but I haven't seen them come back in any form yet.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...r-the-Sale-of-Substantially-All-of-Its-Assets
The Court also approved Producers Dairy Foods’ purchase of Dean Foods’ Reno, Nevada facility for $3.7 million and its purchase of the “Berkeley Farms” trademark and related intellectual property for $3 million.​

 

[Skippy918]

We don’t have Kroger here, but we did have Albertsons. They all closed cause they couldn’t compete with H-E-B. We do have Randall’s which I had no idea was also owned by Albertsons. I knew they were a Safeway brand though. Randall’s is higher priced than H-E-B unless you are buying stuff on sale.