What now, SuperValu?

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pseudo3d
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Re: What now, SuperValu?

Post by pseudo3d »

More drama at SVU, same store sales, basket size, customer count all gone down since last year. Things are looking a bit better on the wholesale side (The Fresh Market and America's Food Basket are with them now), but their retail stores are deteriorating, with their flagship Cub Foods continuing to lose ground against Hy-Vee and ALDI. I wonder how those stores they bought from Food Lion are doing...

http://www.supermarketnews.com/retail-f ... ds-down-57
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Re: What now, SuperValu?

Post by storewanderer »

Supervalu is truly a disaster. They won't be able to continue under this path.
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Re: What now, SuperValu?

Post by klkla »

SVU is just one of those companies that just can not ever get it right (Like A&P and Sears). They're going to die a long painful death, as well.
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Re: What now, SuperValu?

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote:Supervalu is truly a disaster. They won't be able to continue under this path.
klkla wrote:SVU is just one of those companies that just can not ever get it right (Like A&P and Sears). They're going to die a long painful death, as well.
What's astounding to me is that Cub Foods is rapidly being eroded, and they're doing next to nothing. No ambitious remodels, no price wars, nothing. I've always thought that while Cub Foods will probably still be a player in the Minneapolis grocery wars for the time being, it will soon be de-valued to the point where no one's going to want it whole. (In fact, if you cut out the franchised stores, Cub maybe only has 40 stores, it's possible that the "good Cubs" are the ones that AREN'T owned by SVU). The stores that SuperValu does operate is under 200. Winn-Dixie has twice as many stores in Florida than SuperValu has in their entire chain.

Once push comes to shove, though, SuperValu will make some rather hasty decisions regarding what's left of their retail stores, and I don't think that's too far away.
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Re: What now, SuperValu?

Post by storewanderer »

It is almost like they are trying to fail. I cannot figure out what they are doing. What are they thinking? The stores are not that bad. They are clean, staffed okay, etc. Prices are obviously too high and perimeters are clearly unexciting. How hard is it to drive sales?

I thought after they sold off Albertsons they could re-focus on their original retail operations. It seemed like most of their original retail operations were greatly outperforming Albertsons. It is almost as if whatever toxin within Supervalu was poisoning Albertsons, did not disappear when Albertsons disappeared from Supervalu, but rather, stayed there, but decided to go poison the original Supervalu retail operations which were previously relatively healthy.

Sad.

Very sad.

They should try to sell Cub to WinCo. WinCo knows how to run a Cub.
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Re: What now, SuperValu?

Post by Knight »

If SuperValu is struggling after divesting limited assortment/discount grocer Save-A-Lot, more decisions could be made indeed.

I wonder if SuperValu could consider divesting supermarkets Farm Fresh and Shoppers. Farm Fresh is top in the Hampton Roads, Virginia, region. Shoppers has presence in northern Virginia, District of Columbia, and Maryland markets. Both chains are in states where limited assortment/discount grocer Lidl and supermarket Publix are expanding.
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Re: What now, SuperValu?

Post by pseudo3d »

Knight wrote:If SuperValu is struggling after divesting limited assortment/discount grocer Save-A-Lot, more decisions could be made indeed.
From what I had heard, Save-a-Lot was one of the biggest money-makers in the system.
I wonder if SuperValu could consider divesting supermarkets Farm Fresh and Shoppers. Farm Fresh is top in the Hampton Roads, Virginia, region. Shoppers has presence in northern Virginia, District of Columbia, and Maryland markets. Both chains are in states where limited assortment/discount grocer Lidl and supermarket Publix are expanding.
Probably my prediction will come true regarding those--that Farm Fresh gets bought by Publix (making their East Coast line up to Richmond more secure), while Shoppers is sold off to Safeway and Giant (except in areas where neither chain wants to be in). In particular, Shoppers has stores in the southern most suburbs of the DC area, whereas Safeway does not.
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Re: What now, SuperValu?

Post by Knight »

Save-A-Lot faces competition from rival limited assortment/discount grocers Aldi and Lidl.

Could Publix acquire both Farm Fresh (42 stores) and Shoppers (52 stores)? Acquiring both chains gets Publix into the Hampton Roads, Virginia, region and Maryland. SuperValu would remove itself from the Atlantic United States.
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Re: What now, SuperValu?

Post by pseudo3d »

Knight wrote:Save-A-Lot faces competition from rival limited assortment/discount grocers Aldi and Lidl.

Could Publix acquire both Farm Fresh (42 stores) and Shoppers (52 stores)? Acquiring both chains gets Publix into the Hampton Roads, Virginia, region and Maryland. SuperValu would remove itself from the Atlantic United States.
Unlikely for both, because acquiring Shoppers would put them straight into Baltimore, and there's no way that Publix would want stores like where Shoppers is currently located. They don't even go into MS. Realistically, Publix would probably be interested in the best of Farm Fresh, selling the rest to Kroger/Harris Teeter, with Shoppers going to Safeway (same market!), Giant, or perhaps Weis (in Baltimore). The problem with SuperValu and sales, is that they'd like to sell out to operators who would use them as suppliers, which isn't going to happen with anyone willing to buy them. SuperValu still has some Shop N Saves that they acquired from Food Lion, so even selling off Farm Fresh and Shoppers would not pull them out of the region.
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Re: What now, SuperValu?

Post by mjhale »

pseudo3d wrote:
Knight wrote:Save-A-Lot faces competition from rival limited assortment/discount grocers Aldi and Lidl.

Could Publix acquire both Farm Fresh (42 stores) and Shoppers (52 stores)? Acquiring both chains gets Publix into the Hampton Roads, Virginia, region and Maryland. SuperValu would remove itself from the Atlantic United States.
Unlikely for both, because acquiring Shoppers would put them straight into Baltimore, and there's no way that Publix would want stores like where Shoppers is currently located. They don't even go into MS. Realistically, Publix would probably be interested in the best of Farm Fresh, selling the rest to Kroger/Harris Teeter, with Shoppers going to Safeway (same market!), Giant, or perhaps Weis (in Baltimore). The problem with SuperValu and sales, is that they'd like to sell out to operators who would use them as suppliers, which isn't going to happen with anyone willing to buy them. SuperValu still has some Shop N Saves that they acquired from Food Lion, so even selling off Farm Fresh and Shoppers would not pull them out of the region.
There is something else here. Shoppers is a union shop. I was under the understanding that Publix would not purchase another union chain or store. Originally Ahold and Delhaize wanted to sell off the Giant-MD stores in Fredericksburg, Stafford and Southern Maryland. The union protested, the locals protested and Ahold/Delhaize instead sold off the Food Lion stores in those areas. I agree that Shoppers is damaged goods now but why would Publix want to get into a situation where they would have to take on the union with the contracts, keeping employees over to the new company, etc. IMO, Shoppers actually has a few desirable locations that Publix might be interested in: Germantown, MD, Bethesda, MD, Annapolis, MDFairfax, VA, Potomac Yards, VA. But is Publix that desperate to get into the DC market to tangle with a current union shop?

Regarding the Food Lion turned Shop n Save stores. If the news articles are really correct Supervalu purchased the Food Lion stores to in turn sell them to independent operators who would use Supervalu as supplier with the Shop n Save name. Have they actually started selling them off?
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