Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

News & Discussion from the grocery retailers in the Canadian provinces & territories
pseudo3d
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by pseudo3d »

wnetmacman wrote:
pseudo3d wrote:As for RCS, they actually did open a few stores as Real Superstore in the 1980s in Louisiana with a similar product mix (food-leaning, though a few items like clothes). They ultimately sold out to Schwegmann (which went out of business within 7 years, I believe) and that led to a few interesting things like A&P operating a few huge format stores that they didn't quite know how to run (over 100k square feet).
RCS, the Real Canadian Superstore, is a division of Loblaw. Loblaw had two remaining divisions in the US by 1995; New Orleans and St. Louis. St. Louis went to Schnuck's.

The Real Superstores that opened here (New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lafayette) were unlike any stores here at the time, and were pretty successful. Their undoing was Loblaw wanting to divest its US holdings. The New Orleans stores were sold to Schwegmann, who operated them only for a few years before closing them. All of these large stores did not go to A&P. Only one of them did. Schwegmann had already closed them before selling a handful of stores to A&P. Lafayette closed in 1997 and never reopened, being torn down for a theater. Baton Rouge still stands, but has been repainted. There were two stores in New Orleans; one in NO East was torn down before Katrina. A Westbank store (the lone A&P sale) is now Hobby Lobby.
I posted a topic in Groceteria, but the Uptown Superstore was also later an A&P and Rouses. Not sure if it was just a small Superstore or if it had an upper level (it did mention that it was a two-story converted building).
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by bm10k »

http://supermarketnews.com/retail-finan ... ing-stores

Looks like Safeway could be going to be a discount chain
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by storewanderer »

The way Sobeys has handled this purchase is puzzling to me. I guess when a smaller operator buys a larger one things tend to go downhill.
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote:I guess when a smaller operator buys a larger one things tend to go downhill.
EVERY TIME. Besides (arguably) Albertsons/American Stores, there's Randalls/Tom Thumb, Schwegmann/National (New Orleans), SuperValu/Albertsons (most of them at least), Haggen/various Albertsons and Safeway banners, and many others.
bm10k wrote:http://supermarketnews.com/retail-finan ... ing-stores

Looks like Safeway could be going to be a discount chain


It says that Sobeys was going to consider a discount format, not necessarily that they would use the Safeway name on it. They already have FreshCo as a discount grocery concept, and they'll probably rebrand stores as that.
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by storewanderer »

Check out a Google street view of this address:

4575 W 10th Avenue
Vancouver, BC

I am not familiar with the very old looking Safeway font on the street sign. I know these shape of street signs were common on older US Stores 20-30 years ago but that Safeway font is not one I have seen before. Were they using a different font for Safeway in Canada sometime in the past?

Also I have not seen a US location with the building style signs of this store:
1033 Austin Avenue
Coquitlam, BC
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by submariner »

storewanderer wrote:Check out a Google street view of this address:

4575 W 10th Avenue
Vancouver, BC

I am not familiar with the very old looking Safeway font on the street sign. I know these shape of street signs were common on older US Stores 20-30 years ago but that Safeway font is not one I have seen before. Were they using a different font for Safeway in Canada sometime in the past?

Also I have not seen a US location with the building style signs of this store:
1033 Austin Avenue
Coquitlam, BC
If I recall correctly Canada Safeway did use a script font for a while. I'd have to research the era.
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by storewanderer »

I've been to quite a few Canada Safeways the past few days and conditions are quite a bit better than I expected them to be based on Sobeys financial performance.

To me the stores don't seem much different than a US Safeway. The perimeters look the same as before, pricing is reasonable and execution is good. Center store their prices are high (the price cuts they made are a step in the right direction but their prices are still not great) and I think the entire Sobeys private label program is a few steps below Safeway's old offering. Lucerne is still present in door dairy (milk, cream, yogurt) and ice cream (not on cheese, butter, for instance). The employees still wear US Safeway uniforms and they remain on US Safeways wi-fi provider and on the same old phone system as the US Safeways. Bakery bags still say "the bakery counter" and "Safeway Select" is still on various bakery labels, signs, and bread/bagel bags.

There are some areas where you start to see some slippage. Bathrooms do not seem clean and this is a problem I've seen in multiple locations. Attitude of cashiers is quite varied; I've had some excellent ones and some that were very surly. Some of the bakery items (cookies specifically) in the bulk drawers seem to be stale. They run a promotion on donuts after a certain time every night where they go 50% off but not once did I see a sign about it or see it advertised.

I also went into a Sobeys owned Thrifty Foods (this place shares a parking lot with a Save On Foods) which had 2 other customers inside when I went and the Save On next parcel over had at least 20 customers inside right then. This store was just as lousy as before. The prices were extremely high, the highest prices I've seen the whole trip. The perimeter is lightly stocked and largely unappealing. Center store promotions are poor and few.

I think Sobeys problems are moreso with their own operations (that Thrifty Foods is such a joke of a store it is hard to believe it is associated with any legitimate chain) than with the former Safeways. But I give them credit for holding together the Safeways pretty well.
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote:I've been to quite a few Canada Safeways the past few days and conditions are quite a bit better than I expected them to be based on Sobeys financial performance.

To me the stores don't seem much different than a US Safeway. The perimeters look the same as before, pricing is reasonable and execution is good. Center store their prices are high (the price cuts they made are a step in the right direction but their prices are still not great) and I think the entire Sobeys private label program is a few steps below Safeway's old offering. Lucerne is still present in door dairy (milk, cream, yogurt) and ice cream (not on cheese, butter, for instance). The employees still wear US Safeway uniforms and they remain on US Safeways wi-fi provider and on the same old phone system as the US Safeways. Bakery bags still say "the bakery counter" and "Safeway Select" is still on various bakery labels, signs, and bread/bagel bags.
Even so, how long will Safeway stores start looking like a real time warp? Even Albertsons has made changes to some of the Safeway banners they've acquired, I've noticed in commercials and new store articles Vons employees now have lime green uniforms instead of the Lifestyle era (up to you whether this is a change for the better or not, but it's at least a change). Furthermore, if the things I've read about shallow depth of items (only 1-2 deep) is true, then probably the reason the Canadian Safeways look halfway decent is because they're being subsidized by the rest of the chain.
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by storewanderer »

The lime green uniforms were Supervalu's SoCal uniform. That's not really a change, it is just a best practice implementation and the Albertsons uniform won.

I did not see any short in-stock conditions in the 8 or so Canada Safeways I visited. The stores were well stocked for the most part, some had obviously had heavy traffic during the day and looked a bit "shot" in the evening.

The Thrifty Stores was not stocked as well and I think it is entirely possible this Sobeys operation's own legacy stores are what is tanking things. They can blame the Safeway purchase but all I can say is the Safeway sure look healthier than "Thrifty Foods" (what a joke).
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote:The lime green uniforms were Supervalu's SoCal uniform. That's not really a change, it is just a best practice implementation and the Albertsons uniform won.

I did not see any short in-stock conditions in the 8 or so Canada Safeways I visited. The stores were well stocked for the most part, some had obviously had heavy traffic during the day and looked a bit "shot" in the evening.

The Thrifty Stores was not stocked as well and I think it is entirely possible this Sobeys operation's own legacy stores are what is tanking things. They can blame the Safeway purchase but all I can say is the Safeway sure look healthier than "Thrifty Foods" (what a joke).
Well, even if Safeway is doing okay, then it's still the "Safeway purchase" that screwed Sobeys over. Another issue that I can see coming from the Sobeys Wikipedia page is Sobeys was also the supplier of food items to the Canadian Target stores, meaning that when Target pulled out of Canada, that account disappeared. Also apparently the Thrifty Foods banner operates semi-independently from Sobeys, which may explain why it is run so badly.
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