Posted on 11/30/2022 1:38:43 PM PST by ChicagoConservative27
The main feature of Walmart shoes - at least for men - is after a bit they smell like cat piss.
The big supermarket chains realized decades ago that they had to join together or perish. Wal Mart after squashing many of the smaller Department Stores, Zayre, Ames, Calder, Bradlees, and many smaller ones, moved into groceries, where the real cash flow was. Bigger percentage in profits in those merchandise stores, but not even close when it came to making money.
A lot of the Chains panicked. Here in New England the largest Chain was Stop & Shop, and they were targeted for hostile take over. The ‘White Knight’ of KKR came in, privatized the Company then essentially destroyed it. The European Conglomerate Royal Ahold took over. They then had 5-6 Chains in the USA plus extensive holdings in Europe of course, but also Asia, South America, and portions of Africa I believe.
The first order of business was to contend with Wal Mart. The supermarket Industry has gone Global and there is no going back.
In New England, the biggest chains - Stop & Shop, Hannaford, Shaw's are owned by Ahold, Ahold Safeway.. but than we have Big Y privately owned, Wegmans privately owned, Price Chopper/Market32 (private). Connecticut has IGA stores and Stew Leonard's...
Albertsons owns Safeway but yes there would still be a lot of competition. Publix, Ingles, Lidle, whole foods Wal-Mart in addition to the ones you named.
Yeah.
Here is LA, the Kroger’s and Albertsons are being replaced by newer competing chains. Mexican and Chinese.
There’s also the mega corp Amazon supermarkets.
Kogersons?
?
That’s where we are heading if nothing is done. The ChiCom Plague shutdowns were a test run. Government chose essential and nonessential businesses. Grocers followed lock-step with the advice from unelected bureaucrats, imposing mandates on customers, limiting the number of people in stores, forced masking, and aisle directions. Of course there were product and food shortages. I remember going to the grocery store with my daughter and explaining in a voice loud enough for others to hear, that the meat counter line reminded me of food lines in the Soviet Union. I looked for reactions from other customers. There was no agreement with what I was saying. They were too busy maintaining their six feet of precious social distancing, scared to death.
Quite simply, America is filled with unknowing (ignorant) pussies that are completely willing to trade freedom for safety. They are too stupid to know that they will get neither.
"Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities... because it is the quality which guarantees all others."
- Winston Churchill
I really hate Kroger and would rather Albertson’s remain separate. But it doesn’t concern the senate one bit.
And don’t forget Target stores now sell groceries.
I know acting like a bunch of reactionary commies. The merger of two grocers in a environment of hundreds of grocery store chains is hardly a threat. Rather they should see if any of these grocers are in the habit of hiring the undocumented.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, Kroger now owns at least 80% of the grocery stores.
The Covided supply chain problems vary by store. I can find shortages all the time at the Fry's (Kroger) that's a block from my house, but almost never at the Fry's two blocks in the other direction.
Sort of like one of Henry Ford’s famous quotes about the Model T: “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants, so long as it is black.”
Joke at the time: “Why is a Ford car like a bathtub?”
“You wouldn’t want to be seen in one.”
Because it takes the two largest grocery chains who compete with one another and basically doubles the size of Kroger. This is NOT good for pricing competition, product variety and availability competition or wages.
AMEN
Would be very nice if they put that much energy into Hunter’s laptop.
Supply Chain issues ???
Publix is the “big” competition in the South but much smaller stores, less variety but more up market. Food Depot isn’t on the same level and are in lower income areas. Aldi and the like primarily sell their own brands not unlike Trade Joes. In my observation, Food Lion and Piggly Wiggly are really only in small towns. Brookshires has a presence but is probably more like Publix. There’s still Giant in the mid Atlantic and probably other regional stores in NJ and so forth but simply nothing with the market presence of Kroger and Albertsons. Both are UFCW.
Walmart cut back on their stand alone neighborhood markets. You do not want one company deciding pretty much what you can buy as a consumer or where you can sell your food products as a business. Consolidation happens, I saw a lot of it in Southern California, but there’s a tipping point. I don’t think we need one grocery company controlling at least 5000 stores in metro areas.
Good move by the grocers to merge —
when the food shortage comes, that way rather than having two stores with half the food, they’ll have just one store with all the food. (May need to merge with another store after more food shortages.)
Walmart is a price competitor on staples but won’t have the variety of a Kroger or Albertsons. BOTH of the merging companies are UFCW shops. Instead of negotiating with two companies the union will have one. What effect will this have on wages and benefits? Will stores close in areas where Kroger has a significant presence?
Mega mergers always means job cuts and rarely lead to other market efficiencies and improved circumstances for the consumer. Albertsons isn’t even in Georgia that I know of but I know them from other states including states where Kroger is present. I find the market in Atlanta to be begging for more competition in the general grocery space. I don’t see it happening.
Well thank God our Senators are going after private business. Just shows I guess that they’ve solved all the government corruption problems.
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