Supervalu buying Unified Grocers

[pseudo3d]

SuperValu announced that they'll keep Topco and others.

http://www.supermarketnews.com/retail-f ... labels-ceo

[klkla]

Keeping Springfield and Natural Directions seems like a good idea to me. In my experience they both have very good product quality for a private label brand. Consistently better than Kroger IMO.

[storewanderer]

The key is going to be if Supervalu starts to offer its own private labels next to all this stuff, what will the independents select? Some of those independents are already running on a combination of IGA Brand and Western Family brand. Also the question will be how long will TopCo keep offering multiple labels?

Part of the "synergy" will involve, at some point, maybe it won't be for 10 years, consolidation of the private labels. It is more a question of, "when" than "if."

I always thought the Western Family label was pretty good, and it was a very extensive line. Springfield canned goods are largely the same exact stuff as Kroger; their dairy products (cheese and yogurt specifically) are quite lousy. I expect Springfield will be the first label to be eliminated when the time comes that labels get eliminated. Many of the larger Unified-supplied operators in SoCal are either light in private label (Gelsons) or already run their own private label on a few hundred SKUs (Northgate, Cardenas, Superior)...

[marshd1000]

Supervalu completes buy of Unified Grocers:

http://www.supervaluinvestors.com/phoen ... ID=2282911

[CalItalian]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-a ... story.html
The graphic in this article from this morning shows United with 13.3% of the Southern California market

[storewanderer]

Well, it didn't take long for the secondary TopCo brands to get eliminated at the Unified independents in NorCal.

Around Northern California, the Supervalu brands have started to pop up. The Equaline items are replacing all of the Top Care drug items and the Essential Everyday line is replacing all of the Simply Done (which if you had blinked, you'd miss it was even there) and remaining old stock Western Family paper/wrap/bag/disposable plate type products.

Also noticed a few Essential Everyday items in general grocery. I have noticed coffee and a few other random items.

So far the rest of dry grocery remains heavily Western Family and none of that appears to be discontinued.

I'm trying to figure out how this impacts Raleys. Raleys orders drug from Supervalu since they sold their own drug warehouse to Unified (shelf tags say the supplier is "Certified") but to this point they have continued to have only Top Care for drug. I have even seen some Equaline items on clearance at a few Raleys Stores. Raleys also has the Simply Done label on paper/etc. but I believe that is supplied either through Raleys own distribution center or through Super Store Industries distribution.

It would be interesting if Supervalu continues to carry the Top Care drug line for Raleys, then pushes out the Equaline stuff to all of its other customers... seems a bit of a pain to have two brands.

[SamSpade]

Well, it didn't take long for the secondary TopCo brands to get eliminated at the Unified independents in NorCal.

Around Northern California, the Supervalu brands have started to pop up. The Equaline items are replacing all of the Top Care drug items and the Essential Everyday line is replacing all of the Simply Done (which if you had blinked, you'd miss it was even there) and remaining old stock Western Family paper/wrap/bag/disposable plate type products.

So far the rest of dry grocery remains heavily Western Family and none of that appears to be discontinued.

While New Seasons Market carries a bit different selection than traditional grocers, the same thing is true here - lots of Equaline in drug but so far Western Family and lots of Natural Directions in grocery.

Unfortunately the community I'm in Idaho today has a closed grocery store on Sundays so I can't check if Associated has any product changes.

[storewanderer]

No product changes at Associated Utah. They continue to run Western Family on grocery, Top Care on drug, and heavily Simply Done on paper/bag/foil/cleaning products.