Acquisition and Integration of Haggen into Albertsons

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Re: Acquisition and Integration of Haggen into Albertsons

Post by pseudo3d »

marshd1000 wrote:With Haggen being in the Albertsons fold, I wonder if the heads of Haggen and Market Street would share ideas between chains? Also would this now be the time for Pavillions to adopt some of Haggen's and Market Street's practices and become more upscale again?

Interesting side note, Haggen's catering is called Market Street Catering and their cafe dining area was called Market Street Cafe. I know there was not relationship between the two until now!
The Market Street name is just a coincidence, they had it prior to Albertsons. Up until a few years ago, they were two small grocery chains hundreds of miles away from each other that did not have a connection to Albertsons at all. As for sharing ideas, I wouldn't bet on it. There's a United guy in charge of Randalls (Houston Division) but it really hasn't improved much in operations, so I wouldn't expect the same for Pavilions unless something changes.
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Re: Acquisition and Integration of Haggen into Albertsons

Post by storewanderer »

There is something very deep in the culture at Safeway (and evidently at Vons, Randalls, etc.) that seems to be very stuck in its ways and very resistant to change and outside ideas. I am under the impression the problem you have is store managers who are not good at making their own decisions but too used to following orders, and middle management that is very good at executing programs as dictated from above and scaring the store managers into submission even when something isn't working. So you have the middle managers and store managers meddling along as they always have and as you say operations are not improving. New ideas are not coming from people who are close to the customers but rather people far removed in a corporate office a time zone or two away.

I guess one thing that can be said for the Safeway of the late 1990's and into the 2000's: It was very successful at assimilation.

The best thing Albertsons could do for things like Randalls would be to cut them off from Safeway and its centralized set up. Cut them off from Safeway's perimeter programs, ad design department, pricing department. Completely decentralize everything and let these chains get back an identity of their own again. I kind of feel like that's how they have handled Acme (which was previously very much an Albertsons in most everything but name)- cut it off and let it gain its own programs and identity.

I don't see sharing of ideas taking place between Haggen and United because Washington and Texas are very different markets and the stores are a bit the same but not quite. United is also a lot more price focused and a lower quality operator than Haggen. United runs a variety of formats. Haggen was a top quality operator with high prices. One format.
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Re: Acquisition and Integration of Haggen into Albertsons

Post by veteran+ »

storewanderer wrote:There is something very deep in the culture at Safeway (and evidently at Vons, Randalls, etc.) that seems to be very stuck in its ways and very resistant to change and outside ideas. I am under the impression the problem you have is store managers who are not good at making their own decisions but too used to following orders, and middle management that is very good at executing programs as dictated from above and scaring the store managers into submission even when something isn't working. So you have the middle managers and store managers meddling along as they always have and as you say operations are not improving. New ideas are not coming from people who are close to the customers but rather people far removed in a corporate office a time zone or two away.

I guess one thing that can be said for the Safeway of the late 1990's and into the 2000's: It was very successful at assimilation.

The best thing Albertsons could do for things like Randalls would be to cut them off from Safeway and its centralized set up. Cut them off from Safeway's perimeter programs, ad design department, pricing department. Completely decentralize everything and let these chains get back an identity of their own again. I kind of feel like that's how they have handled Acme (which was previously very much an Albertsons in most everything but name)- cut it off and let it gain its own programs and identity.

I don't see sharing of ideas taking place between Haggen and United because Washington and Texas are very different markets and the stores are a bit the same but not quite. United is also a lot more price focused and a lower quality operator than Haggen. United runs a variety of formats. Haggen was a top quality operator with high prices. One format.

Great observations!

Store Managers and even District Managers are severely beaten up by Safeway (even worse for Store Managers). They have the highest incidence of turn over (termination, quit with and without notice), leave of absence, injury on the job, etc. that I have ever witnessed.

This was from the Steve Burd days and a little after. This is no hyperbole, from CEO to Regional, they were brutal.

Albertson's needs to go back to the type of company it was during Joe Albertson. That is when I remember being extremely impressed and actually jealous of how awesome their stores were (the ones I saw).
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Re: Acquisition and Integration of Haggen into Albertsons

Post by marshd1000 »

The reason I wondered if ideas could be shared is that when Metropolitan Market was acquired by Good Food Holdings, the heads of both chains spoke of sharing ideas between chains. So I just naturally thought that there could be sharing between Haggen and United's Market Street!
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Re: Acquisition and Integration of Haggen into Albertsons

Post by veteran+ »

marshd1000 wrote:The reason I wondered if ideas could be shared is that when Metropolitan Market was acquired by Good Food Holdings, the heads of both chains spoke of sharing ideas between chains. So I just naturally thought that there could be sharing between Haggen and United's Market Street!
It's certainly possible.

I remember King Soopers (pre Kroger) and Ralphs (pre Kroger) used to share ideas regularly.
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Re: Acquisition and Integration of Haggen into Albertsons

Post by marshd1000 »

In my example about Metropolitan Market and Good Food Holdings, I forgot to say that Good Food is the parent of Bristol Farms.
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Re: Acquisition and Integration of Haggen into Albertsons

Post by pseudo3d »

veteran+ wrote:
marshd1000 wrote:The reason I wondered if ideas could be shared is that when Metropolitan Market was acquired by Good Food Holdings, the heads of both chains spoke of sharing ideas between chains. So I just naturally thought that there could be sharing between Haggen and United's Market Street!
It's certainly possible.

I remember King Soopers (pre Kroger) and Ralphs (pre Kroger) used to share ideas regularly.
They never shared ownership prior to 1999, so I'm sure any idea-sharing was probably "gentlemen's agreement" type deals.
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Re: Acquisition and Integration of Haggen into Albertsons

Post by veteran+ »

pseudo3d wrote:
veteran+ wrote:
marshd1000 wrote:The reason I wondered if ideas could be shared is that when Metropolitan Market was acquired by Good Food Holdings, the heads of both chains spoke of sharing ideas between chains. So I just naturally thought that there could be sharing between Haggen and United's Market Street!
It's certainly possible.

I remember King Soopers (pre Kroger) and Ralphs (pre Kroger) used to share ideas regularly.
They never shared ownership prior to 1999, so I'm sure any idea-sharing was probably "gentlemen's agreement" type deals.

Nope, never any shared ownership.

Just lots of idea sharing.
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Re: Acquisition and Integration of Haggen into Albertsons

Post by pseudo3d »

veteran+ wrote:
pseudo3d wrote:
veteran+ wrote:
It's certainly possible.

I remember King Soopers (pre Kroger) and Ralphs (pre Kroger) used to share ideas regularly.
They never shared ownership prior to 1999, so I'm sure any idea-sharing was probably "gentlemen's agreement" type deals.

Nope, never any shared ownership.

Just lots of idea sharing.
Not out of the realm of the imagination, from various accounts I've heard Randall's and H-E-B were friends at one time (well, as far as grocery stores can become friends, as their executives knew each other at least), even agreeing to not open stores in each other's markets (in this case Houston and Austin). This lasted up until the early 1990s when H-E-B Pantry stores opened in Randalls markets (which were really back-door H-E-B stores) and Randalls bought Tom Thumb, which had stores in Austin (and rebranded to Randalls within a few years). Any "friendly rivalries" that remained ended when Safeway bought Randalls, essentially killing it (and came dangerously close to "actually killing it"). I wouldn't be surprised if they shared ideas in the past.

In any case, whether it be Ralphs/King Soopers, H-E-B/Randalls, or Metropolitan Market/Bristol Farms, I think it's very unlikely that Haggen/United would share ideas because they're too far away and their businesses too dissimilar. Haggen runs one format, United runs at least four. Haggen has a little more than a dozen stores (after all are converted) and United runs over 70.
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Re: Acquisition and Integration of Haggen into Albertsons

Post by klkla »

pseudo3d wrote:I think it's very unlikely that Haggen/United would share ideas because they're too far away and their businesses too dissimilar. Haggen runs one format, United runs at least four. Haggen has a little more than a dozen stores (after all are converted) and United runs over 70.
It's highly unlike that they WON'T share ideas. They're owned by the same company. If something works well in one division you can bet they will try to implement best practices in other divisions. That's one of the biggest advantages of buying and merging existing companies.

I have a feeling United insisted on remaining autonomous as a condition of the sale to Albertsons. It would be similar to when Arden-Mayfair bought Gelson's in the 1960's they had to agree to keep the operation completely separate from the legacy Mayfair Markets and keep Bernard Gelson on as President. At the time Mayfair had over 250 stores and Gelson's had 4. In the years that followed Mayfair's management made many stupid decisions and drove the company into the ground. The only reason the underlying corporate structure survives to this day is because the agreement prevented them from screwing up Gelson's operations, although they were able to starve it of capital investment which kept it from growing as fast as it could have.
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