Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson on Monday sued to block the proposed merger of Kroger and Albertsons, two of the nation’s largest grocery chains.
In the suit filed in King County Superior Court, Ferguson argued that the $25-billion deal would harm consumers and raise prices, The Seattle Times reported. Kroger and Albertsons have more than 300 locations in the state and account for more than half of its grocery sales, according to the suit.
“This merger is bad for Washington shoppers and workers,” Ferguson said in a news release Monday. “Shoppers will have fewer choices and less competition, and, without a competitive marketplace, they will pay higher prices at the grocery store.”
Trust Bust that shit.
Kroger owns so many other grocery chains that I kind of assumed Albertson’s was already one.
Albertsons is the same they have like 14-15 brands they bought out. So these two merging would be a huge market share of grocery stores.
Kroger typically just operates one chain per region, which was a local chain they bought out for expansion. They don’t have multiple stores in an area that compete with each other or have different names.
Seattle area we have qfc, Metro market, and Fred Meyer who are all Kroger brands. To be honest I thought Safeway was part of Kroger as well but just learned they are owned by Albertsons.
Yeah if this goes through there’s not going to be any choice left for groceries near me. We already only barely have a choice here this merger would be bleak
Winco, Costco, PCC, Whole Foods (yay amazon), and all the Asian places like H Mart and Ranch Market. Probably only applies to the I-5 corridor from Tacoma to Everett.
Huh, so they might do that in some places. What I meant is that I’m not familiar with them doing things like operating comparable stores in the same area. I guess I recall QFC vs. Fred Meyer from when I lived in Portland, and QFCs were small while Fred Meyers is set up like Target - large selection of non grocery items, and huge stores. In Colorado they have City Markets (small) and King Soopers (large) but City Market is up in small towns in the mountains and Western Slope, none in Denver, and King Soopers is all over Denver, none afaik in the smaller cities.
Some Safeways do sell Kroger brand things, so it’s actually very confusing
There are several QFCs and Fred Meyers near each other in Washington that are also near a Safeway or Albertson. This would absolutely result in the closure of a lot of stores.
I am not from that region, so all I can think of when I hear the name Fred Meyer is Jello Biafra mentioning it and someone yelling out, “FRED MEYER!” during the spoken word Night of the Living Rednecks track on The Dead Kennedys Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death album.
I would love to know why that guy was so excited about Fred Meyer.
I isn’t as big as it used to be, but was actually a pretty big grocery chain in its heyday. I suspect that in the case of the song, it was a recognizable name and probably flowed off the tongue somewhat.
It wasn’t a song, it was a spoken word bit. It was a very weird moment. All I can think is it was someone who worked there and was like “yeah! He mentioned the place where I stock the vegetables!”
Oh I just caught that someone (in the audience) is who yelled Fred Meyer. That’s pretty hilarious. I can’t think that it actually meant anything unless there was one nearby and that was some code to their friends to meet there.
I used to live in Denver and it was King Soopers there. Where I live now there aren’t any Kroger stores but there is an Albertsons on every other block and I felt like IMO King Soopers was better so I wasn’t concerned about it. But WA state is absolutely right when the 2 are actually in competition with each other, it’s a bad move to allow it. I felt that way when Albertsons and Safeway merged because they were basically the only stores in town. They ended up being required to sell the Safeway stores here, they weren’t allowed to acquire them.
Fry’s, in AZ, which surprised me.
All krogers stores are set up basically the same. When I moved from Phoenix and frys to Los Angeles and Ralph’s, the stores I used were exactly the same.
There is a very serious problem with 1 grocery chain having a monopoly and Kroger pretty much does in some areas.
I literally shop at five different grocery stores in an attempt to avoid getting overly gouged. Imagine if I did not even have that option because they were all owned by the same company.
True… That said the existing already amount of foods made by the same companies doesn’t help either.
Think about what this would look like for you locally, call your representatives and let them know you care and oppose this issue.
----- Kroger brands: -----
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Baker’s
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City Market
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Dillons
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Food 4 Less
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Foods Co
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Fred Meyer
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Fry’s
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Gerbes
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Jay C Food Store
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King Soopers
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Kroger
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Mariano’s
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Metro Market
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Pay-Less Super Markets
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Pick’n Save
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QFC
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Ralphs
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Ruler
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Smith’s Food and Drug
----- Albertsons brands: ------
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Acme Markets: 162 locations (CT, DE, MD, NJ, NY and PA)
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Albertsons: 381 locations (AZ, AR, CA, CO, ID, LA, MT, NV, NM, ND, OR, TX, UT, WA and WY)
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Albertsons Market: 23 locations (NM)
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Amigos: 4 locations (TX)
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Andronico’s: 7 locations (CA)
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Balducci’s: 8 locations (CT, MD, NY, VA)
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Carrs: 11 locations (AK)
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Haggen: 15 locations (WA)
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Jewel-Osco: 188 locations (IL, IA, and IN)
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Kings Food Markets: 19 locations (CT, NJ, NY)
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Lucky: 4 locations (UT)
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Market Street: 19 locations (NM and TX)
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Pak 'n Save: 2 locations (CA)
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Pavilions: 27 locations (Southern California)
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Randalls: 28 locations (Greater Houston and Greater Austin, TX)
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Safeway: 914 locations (AK, AZ, CA, CO, DC, DE, HI, ID, MD, MT, NE, NV, NM, OR, SD, VA, WA, WY)
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Shaw’s: 127 locations (MA, ME, NH, RI and VT)
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Star Market: 21 locations (MA)
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Tom Thumb: 65 locations (Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, TX)
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United Supermarkets: 97 locations (Texas Panhandle) plus 39 United Express locations (NM and TX)
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Vons: 194 locations (Southern California and Southern Nevada)
I wonder if Albertson’s owned Jewel-Osco back in the 80s. We had one in my town and it was pretty good as both a supermarket and a drugstore. I think Jewel was the supermarket and Osco was the drugstore.
They’ve only owned Jewel-Osco since 1999; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel-Osco
No they didn’t
How about a list of independent chains? Off the top of my head, I can think of Stater Bros, Publix, and HEB, so independents seem to be regional. Maybe Trader Joe’s.
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Kroger has already ruined enough Washington retailers. They need to stay away from Safeway & Albertsons.
It’s probably an issue all over, and I hope it gets blocked, for the sake of consumers. Kroger acquired a company called Roundy’s which has a chain called “Pick N Save” in Wisconsin back in 2015. I remember shopping there after and seeing additional tags with products’ prices announcing the “Your New Low”, but prices were higher than pre acquisition. I stopped shopping there after that and noticing a decrease in product/brand diversity.
Wasnt Safeway bought by Albertsons?
Yes.
I miss old Fred Meyers, working there as they started to transition away from what made it a good store makes me not want to shop there anymore. Now it’s like a grocery store with a home and apparel department. Before it was a full department store. But you could definitely feel the weight of management shifting to grocery when I was there between 2012 and 2016.
Greetings fellow former Fred Meyer associate! It was my first job after High School, and I was there during the transition as well. Used to love Fred Meyer when I was a kid. It had good quality products, service was always good, and it just holds a nostalgic place in my heart. Post Kroger it has just turned into a shell of itself. Having even more options reduced by Kroger taking over the other two main grocery chains would be a nightmare.
Mergers and monopolies are a feature
Christ, someone needs to block it.
