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Opposition to the $24.6 billion Kroger, Albertsons merger does not appear to be dying down as the Teamsters union announced they oppose the deal. The Teamsters, a labor union representing members in the U.S. and Canada, said that some 22,000 of their members work for Kroger and Albertsons, across the companies’ stores, distribution centers, and manufacturing plants. The Teamsters said they had been engaging in talks with both Kroger and Albertsons over the last few months, but little progress was made regarding some of the concerns the union had around the merger deal, including job security. “In our discussions with...

If Kroger and Albertsons thought Republicans would rescue their plan to merge, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) made it clear last Tuesday that support for the merger among Republicans is anything but certain. What is the background? Kroger announced in October plans to acquire Albertsons for $24.6 billion. The plan was not exactly celebrated. Instead, it triggered immediate antitrust concerns, especially among Democrats who are suspicious of massive corporations. After all, Kroger is the nation's second-largest grocery store chain and Albertsons is the fourth-largest. If the acquisition were approved, Kroger could potentially rival Walmart. What happened with Cotton? At a hearing...

Members of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights questioned the woke CEOs of grocery store giants Kroger and Albertsons about their proposed $25 billion merger last week. Fearing this deal will “raise prices, cut jobs and exacerbate inequality in food access through the closing of more locations,” unions and progressive advocacy groups oppose the deal and have lobbied the Biden administration to stop the planned merger, according to The Hill, During his questioning of Kroger CEO William Rodney McMullen, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican, delivered one of the best legislative smackdowns I’ve seen in...

WASHINGTON — The attorneys general of California, Illinois and the District of Columbia are suing Albertsons in an effort to stop the grocery chain from paying a nearly $4 billion dividend to its shareholders. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., asks the court to block the payment until the attorneys general have reviewed Albertsons’ proposed merger with Kroger Co. The lawsuit is the second this week seeking to delay the dividend payment. The state of Washington's Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a similar lawsuit in state court Tuesday. Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons said Wednesday that both...

The combined sales of the two grocery store chains are nearly $210 billion, putting Kroger about $10 billion shy of U.S. food sales at Walmart, the world’s largest grocer. Kroger and Albertsons are expected to divest 100 to 375 stores to pacify antitrust concerns, leaving Kroger to operate more than 4,500 stores nationwide, according to the Enquirer. Albertsons’ investors will own a separate company that includes the divested stores. Both stores currently employ a combined 710,000 associates and operate 4,996 stores, 66 distribution centers, 52 manufacturing plants, 3,972 pharmacies and 2,015 fuel centers in 48 states and Washington D.C.

Kroger, the nation's largest traditional grocery chain, announced significant policy changes this week aimed at compelling employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19. What are the details? Starting next year, the Cincinnati-based company will no longer provide two weeks of paid emergency leave to unvaccinated employees who become infected with COVID-19, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday after viewing a company memo. The paper noted that Kroger also plans to add a $50 monthly surcharge to company health plans for salaried nonunion employees who are unvaccinated. Both policies are set to take effect on Jan. 1, the Journal said. According...

Kroger, the parent company of Ralphs and Food 4 Less, will soon shut down two of its stores in Long Beach in response to the city imposing a “hero pay” increase of $4 per hour for some grocery store workers. In announcing the closure, Kroger cited a recently passed Long Beach City Council ordinance that mandated the hazard pay bump for at least 120 days amid the increased health risk to workers during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The new law affects grocery stores with at least 300 employees nationwide or more than 15 employees per market in the city. Kroger,...

Before government shut the nation down, Americans ate half their meals outside home. The farmers who served restaurants and cafeterias are dumping meat, veggies, and milk. And it's going to get worse. America’s food system is cracking.People are still eating, farmers are still farming, and grocery stores are still open, but in areas around the country, shoppers looking for meat, milk, and other products find empty shelves and limits on what they can purchase — all while farmers from coast to coast are forced to dump milk, plow up vegetables, and euthanize livestock. So what’s happening, and why?There isn’t a...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Police are on the scene of a reported shooting at a Kroger in Jeffersontown. Jeffersontown Police confirm the shooting report came in just before 3 p.m. for the store at 9080 Taylorsville Road near the intersection of Hurstbourne Parkway.

Kroger announced Thursday that it will not longer sell firearms or ammunition to persons under 21 years of age. The grocery chain sells guns and ammunition at its Fred Meyer stores in the western U.S. Those sales will continue but persons under the age of 21 will be prohibited from purchase. CNN Money reports that Kroger released a statement, saying, “In response to the tragic events in Parkland and elsewhere, we’ve taken a hard look at our policies and procedures for firearm sales. Recent events demonstrate the need for additional action on the part of responsible gun retailers.”

New market data has somehow managed to make Whole Foods’ beleaguered lot look even worse. On top of reports last week that rival Albertsons was sniffing around Sprouts Farmers Market, an upstart organic grocer and wellness store whose prices are about 19 percent cheaper on average than Whole Foods, there are now some new numbers suggesting the high-end grocery chain is also still hemorrhaging shoppers. Foot traffic has dipped once again, Barclays analysts note, straight-up describing the magnitude this time as “staggering.” Technically, it’s 3 percent, which can make “staggering” seem a little far-fetched — until you consider it translates...

It is nice to see that more people are noticing the weird threats against peaceful people generated at the Moms Demand Action facebook page. Charles C. W. Cooke writes about it at National Review.com.   I would have been happy to have him use the photograph, with attribution, but perhaps, because the MDA page did not give attribution, he never contacted me. He does a good job of covering the issue.  I would have been happy to give him more background.   From nationalreview.com: Reacting to a photograph of a man standing at a checkout with a handgun holstered upon his...

I had the picture above taken, and wrote the story about it a month ago.  It seems to have hit a nerve, because Moms Demand Action stole the picture and tried to use it for their propaganda.   It is one of the reasons that I copyright these articles and allow for use *if the attribution line is included*.   MDA did not include the attribution line, but their use of the picture is backfiring anyway. Here is a link to the article at concealednation.org that it generated.    Brandon, the author, did a good job. As we start reading through the...

I had read about Moms Demanding Action's strident calling for a boycott of Kroger's over MDA's dislike of the exercise of the second amendment.  I had also read the new media's urging to show support for Kroger's polite reply that the MDA's should mind their own business.   Of course, political manipulation is the MDA's business... and that runs exactly contrary to the limits on government that allow for toleration of others. So I stopped at Fry's and filled up the tank.   I was open carrying, as I usually am in Arizona, especially at this time of year.  Opening day...

A customer in the parking lot of the Kroger recorded the incident on their cellphone. In the video, you can see the unnamed manager approach the shoplifting suspect. The suspect appears to have a knife in his hand. The manager shoves him into a parked car and gets the knife out the suspect’s hand before eventually slamming him down to the ground.

CHARLESTON, WV - Police are on the lookout for a suspect in an armed robbery in Huntington, WV. According to dispatchers, it happened outside of Kroger, located on 1st Street and 7th Avenue at 2:37 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 14. Dispatchers say a male armed with a handgun robbed one of the bell ringers of The Salvation Army, took an entire bucket of donations, and fled on foot. We spoke to bell ringers at another Kroger location on 5th Avenue, who tell us police stopped by to tell them to take precautions.

INDIANAPOLIS -- A Kroger manager who fatally shot a man who police said was trying to rob the store voluntarily resigned Wednesday. Elijah "Levi" Elliott, 24, shot Jeremy Atkinson, 26, at the Kroger store at 5025 W. 71st St. on Dec. 26, after Atkinson put an employee in a chokehold and charged at Elliott, police said. Reading from a statement and standing beside his attorney, Elliott said he knew of Kroger's policy banning guns in the workplace, but said he had chosen to carry a weapon for the last three years. Elliott said he feared for his life and that...

Center>Murder at Kroger's Tired of constantly being broke and stuck in an unhappy marriage, a young husband decided to solve both problems by taking out a large insurance policy on his wife, with himself as the beneficiary, and arranging to have her killed. A "friend of a friend" put him in touch with a nefarious underworld figure who went by the name of "Artie." Artie explained to the husband that his going price for snuffing out a spouse was $5,000. The husband said he was willing to pay that amount but that he wouldn't have any cash on hand until...