I spent a bit of time earlier trying to figure out who owned what in Seattle earlier. What I got out of it:
* QFC/Fred Meyer are owned by Kroger
* Safeway/Albertsons are owned by a capital management company (Cerberus)
* PCC, Red Apple, Town and Country, and Metro Market are local.
* UNFI owns SuperValu, which is the main distributor for Whole Foods / IGA / possibly some others in the 'local' list.
The depressing part of this: most of grocery stores in the area are owned by 3 companies. And they've all turned into a complete garbage race to the bottom "what's the minimum quality we can sell and still consider food".
Note that Fred Meyer (18.4) and QFC (14.1) are already both owned by Kroger. So that would be 49.8% post-merger, per those figures.
These figures seem to be for the Seattle metro rather than the city itself. Costco might be a competitor in some sense but it doesn't serve the area I live -- the nearest one is a 45 minute drive away. WinCos are even further away -- they serve some of the suburbs, but not the city of Seattle. Ditto Walmart. I've never heard of or seen Campeon. Whole Foods / PCC exist, but are expensive. Trader Joe's is fine but not really a full grocery store.
As I posted elsewhere, Seattle has about 30 standard chain grocery stores within city limits and all are owned by Albertsons or Kroger. The rest are smaller operations, boutiques like like Trader Joe's, or higher-priced like Whole Foods. There is no Walmart in Seattle, and many of the 4-5 Targets are smaller stores with limited selection.
This merger would leave Seattle with one "regular" grocer chain. We have QFC and Fred Meyer (both Kroger), and Safeway (Albertson's). There are certainly other stores - Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Costco, and various boutiques - but no other major chains. We don't even have a Wal-Mart within the city.
Seems more like dumping goods to me, admittedly the only places with well priced bananas in Seattle are the Asian markets and a few fruit stands, the Kroger brands (QFC, Fred Meyers) and Cerebrus Capital brands (Safeway, Albertsons) move 90% of the volume in the grocery industry in Seattle, leaving the small independents, Metropolitan Market, PCC, and Whole Foods with a very small sliver of the market.
I don't see how Amazon even with Whole Foods could compete in the PNW, Amazon Fresh volume is waaay down in Seattle from what it was at the turn of the decade (super popular back then), and in other regions there is a dominate retailer like HEB or Lowes that literally owns the market and has stores so close together that they cannabalize their fellow stores volume, preventing proper competition (see Randalls trying to fight HEB in Austin, TX).
That doesn't seem likely. According to this source, Frey Meyer (18.4%) + Safeway (17.3%) would be the clear market leader with over 35%, but there's still robust competition from Costco, Walmart, and others.
Yep exactly it's not even Kroger and Safeway. It's...
(a) Kroger - Kroger, Ralphs, Dillons, Smith’s, King Soopers, Fry’s, QFC, City Market, Owen’s, Jay C, Pay Less, Baker’s, Gerbes, Harris Teeter, Pick ‘n Save, Metro Market, Mariano’s, Fred Meyer, Dillons Marketplace, Fry’s Marketplace, King Soopers Marketplace, Kroger Marketplace, Smith’s Marketplace, Food 4 Less, Foods Co.
(b) Cerberus Capital Management - Albertons, Acme Markets, Carrs-Safeway, Haggen, Jewel-Osco, Kings, Pavilions, Plated, Randalls, Safeway, Shaw's and Star Market, Tom Thumb, United Supermarkets, Vons.
In the PNW, I don't think it even creates the illusion. What grocery stores are left that wouldn't be under that umbrella? In Redmond, WA, the only ones that come to mind are Trader Joe's, PCC, and Whole Foods. One could probably shop at PCC and get everything one needs for food. Whole Foods, sure, but it's pricey and now you're dealing with just another giant corporation trying to eat the world.
But it is starting to look like there's going to be Kroger and Publix (if you live far enough south). Meanwhile our government agencies are over there playing with their fiddles.
Get ready to drive to Auburn or Bellevue for groceries not from Kroger!
The closing of Red Apple Market in the Central District, HT Oak Tree on Aurora, Viet Wah on MLK, Safeway in Greenwood, and QFC pulling out of the construction of the location on Stone Way has added up. Losing money in this industry is really easy, stocking a grocery store aisle can cost $100k to $300k.
New Seasons pulled out of Ballard (too far from their distribution network), and the Target in Ballard blows chunks (paid parking, angry staff, everything is locked, self checkouts that have damaged hardware).
The smaller players (Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, PCC, Metropolitan Market) are often reliant on wholesalers operated by Safeway or Kroger, as major brands like Nabisco don't want to negotiate with each retailer and handle fulfillment, and the cost of dealing with wholesalers from other regions can kill a business (just look at the death of Island Pacific in the old Viet Wah space as an example).
> Consumer co-ops saw popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, but have largely faded from view. A niche they had occupied, "natural food store" is now dominated by Amazon through its Whole Foods subsidiary, though there are some independent co-ops still extant,
You missed a chance to mention PCC Community Markets, the USA's largest grocery store co-op, who are also located in Seattle!
(And just like Amazon, PCC was recently in a union labor dispute!)
- Not all grocery stores are fungible in the category.
Safeway and Whole Foods cater to a very different clientele at different price points
- That is a nationwide amount, but locally may be very different. There are no Walmarts in the city limits of Seattle
- This is not just about customers, but suppliers as well
Now, there are still plenty of choices for me - I could go to a PCC, Whole Foods, Costco, Amazon Fresh, etc. Not every city has the same options, and turning a market with 3 or 4 competitors into 2 or 3 is still a material change, as ew have seen in other industries.
I dunno, I shop at Mariano's, which was owned by Roundy's. Kroger bought them up and it has really messed up the store's supply chain. Lots of shuffling of items and produce quality has suffered. Big step down. I used to feel like Marianos was Whole Foods done right, with lower prices. Now I'm not so sure.
I'm from the Twin Cities in Minnesota which has tons of co-op grocery stores. They're successful and growing with cheaper prices than Whole Foods and much more progressive values (as well as giving regular folk an ownership stake in a crucial community institution). Whole Foods seemed to me to be just a poor copy of cooperative grocers. I'm surprised no one else has mentioned that in the comments here.
I'm not shedding any tears for Whole Foods' "culture" now that they've been bought by Amazon. They were always a sort of sham-progressive company. In the words of Portlandia, "Whole Foods is CORPORATE."
I suppose if you're going to be corporate, might as well go full Amazon. They do it very well.
Same, in area South of Seattle they have just become whole foods for the most part. I still go because at least the money goes to smaller scale businesses, but there is nothing inexpensive about them.
I really don't know how this will go through. I feel like Safeway/Vons was already a monopoly and then they merged with Albertsons, which to me feels like a grocery chain that is gigantic. Now they are merging with Kroger and this to me seems insane.
Now I know alot of people will say who cares, lots of grocery stores owned by one company what could happen? Well having a chain this big they could raise the price of food in many cities to whatever they want with no repercussions as people have to eat and there is no more competition. I know in my city this merger would mean we would have no grocery stores that are not owned by Kroger(Walmart and Target still sell food though). Its a pretty scary proposition.
It's explained mostly by the lack of competition in grocery stores. Not to mention that Albertsons & Kroger are trying to merge. If this is the case there will be essentially 2 grocery stores owning almost every other grocery store in the country.
* QFC/Fred Meyer are owned by Kroger * Safeway/Albertsons are owned by a capital management company (Cerberus) * PCC, Red Apple, Town and Country, and Metro Market are local. * UNFI owns SuperValu, which is the main distributor for Whole Foods / IGA / possibly some others in the 'local' list.
The depressing part of this: most of grocery stores in the area are owned by 3 companies. And they've all turned into a complete garbage race to the bottom "what's the minimum quality we can sell and still consider food".
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