Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

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

Post by storewanderer »

Add this to the stores they sold for divest (they added a few more to that deal too that were not required to be sold) and it appears they bought too many stores. The real problem is Sobeys does not appear to do much of anything well. They kind of remind of of Save Mart, but with a better private label program, better quality but similarly limited in mix fresh departments, better pricing, etc. Similar to Save Mart, they seem to do lower than the competition volumes, selection seems less than competition, systems are not with the times, and they strike me as a place you just would not go out of your way to shop, and may go out of your way to avoid if you can.
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by marshd1000 »

While I have not heard that the Safeway banner is going away (and I am thinking it is not), looks like Sobeys is going to introduce the Lucerne Dairy brand to Sobeys and IGA out west. This is happening as part of an agreement to sell its dairy assets. Here is the story:

http://supermarketnews.com/retail-finan ... iry-assets
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by marshd1000 »

I am in Vancouver, BC today and went into the Safeway at Oakridge Centre. It is still very much a lifestyle Safeway. So looks wise, it is very familiar. But it seems like they now have totally transitioned away from the Safeway US brands. I did see a reference to Primo Talgio but did not see it in the deli counter. Pretty much everything private label has transitioned to Sobey's Compliments brand. Again, the notable exception is the use of Lucerne for milk and ice cream. As I stated above, that expanded to Sobey's and IGA in Westwrn Canada. In relation to their holiday promotions, they are using " Make the Holidays Better". While the font is different than what is being used by Albertsons/Safeway, I kind of wonder if it was inspired by it? Also thinking out loud, do you think Cerebus or the soon to be independent Albertsons companies would ever try to merge with Sobey's?
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by pseudo3d »

marshd1000 wrote:I am in Vancouver, BC today and went into the Safeway at Oakridge Centre. It is still very much a lifestyle Safeway. So looks wise, it is very familiar. But it seems like they now have totally transitioned away from the Safeway US brands. I did see a reference to Primo Talgio but did not see it in the deli counter. Pretty much everything private label has transitioned to Sobey's Compliments brand. Again, the notable exception is the use of Lucerne for milk and ice cream. As I stated above, that expanded to Sobey's and IGA in Westwrn Canada. In relation to their holiday promotions, they are using " Make the Holidays Better". While the font is different than what is being used by Albertsons/Safeway, I kind of wonder if it was inspired by it? Also thinking out loud, do you think Cerebus or the soon to be independent Albertsons companies would ever try to merge with Sobey's?
Use of the term "better" isn't exclusive to Albertsons Cos., just like "fresh" or "marketplace" is one of those common shared things. Anyway, it's highly unlikely Albertsons is going to expand outside of the U.S. anytime soon, especially since they sold Safeway's share in Casa Ley and the general difficulty of American retailers in Canada (usually the ones that made it there established themselves in the 1960s or earlier...and when push came to shove, the Canadian outlets were the first to go, see A&P, Kmart). More likely, one of two things will happen.

1) Safeway branding will continue, though co-branded with Sobeys ("Sobeys-Safeway" or "Safeway by Sobeys")
2) Sobeys will eventually phase out Safeway branding entirely, especially if licensing fees came into play depending on the terms of the original agreement
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by storewanderer »

Safeway has a good name in Canada and strong branding. Canada was Safeway's most profitable division at the time of the sale and as long as Sobey's does not run the stores improperly they should do well and there should be no need to change the name. Sobey's already runs quite a few banners. I went into a Sobey's Store in BC called Thrifty Foods and while it was a new, modern store, it was very unimpressive. It also was not doing much business. The Canada Safeways, by contrast, were mostly all very busy stores with nice looking perimeters (better than the US Stores). I was in these stores shortly after they were sold by US Safeway; you still had to scan a club card for sale prices (they had generic cards to scan).
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by marshd1000 »

For the heck of it, I was on the Canada Safeway website. Other than the fact that Compliments brands from Sobey's are now offered rather than the US Safeway brands, there really has been little mention of the Sobey's connection....Until now! In fact, I am wondering if there is going to be a rebannering of Canada Safeway. But they are starting out with joint flyers. Interesting that Safeway US and Albertsons are starting to do the same. Here's the link!

http://betterfoodstartshere.com/

So I don't know if this rebannering or just joint ads!?

Well, I looked online and see that what Sobeys is doing is just promoting a Sobeys/Safeway emphasis on lower prices for produce. Safeway Canada also has a new tagline, "Better Food Starts Here", which is similar to the Sobeys tagline, "Better Food For All". Anyway, when I went to the promotional site for the new lower prices, you have to click either Safeway or Sobeys. So it seems for now, the brands are keeping separate identities.

Here in Seattle, our cable system receives CBUT TV from Vancouver, BC, so we get to view Canadian TV and commercials. Since the Sobeys purchase of Safeway, I had not noticed any Canada Safeway ads, only a few holiday ads produced by Safeway USA that were already in the pipeline at the time the sale happened. So I finally saw a Sobeys produced Safeway ad. it was about this new initiative. It featured celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver, who has been the Sobeys spokesman. But it was a Safeway only ad. So perhaps, Sobeys is seeing the value in keeping the Safeway brand name alive in Western Canada and Thunder Bay, Ontario.
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by SamSpade »

Here's the article from CBC Calgary about what is happening:
Sobeys and Safeway Alberta vow to slash produce prices
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by marshd1000 »

This morning I went again to the Canada Safeway website and looked for a sales flyer for Edmonton, Alberta. Indeed, the flyers are combined. It will be interesting to see if they will manage it like Safeway USA has managed two banners in Alaska? In Alaska, the ads are joint ads for Carrs/Safeway. That has been the norm for years there. But in the Sobeys/Safeway case, I wonder in Western Canada, will they open new Safeways or new Sobeys? Also in BC, will be start to see joint ads with Sobeys owned Thrifty Foods and Safeway?
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by storewanderer »

If they are smart they will ditch the "Thrifty Foods" (pathetic joke of a store) concept and go with Safeway. Based on the fact that they ditched the Safeway private labels for their own (which also didn't look so hot and was priced terribly) I am not really too positive about much of anything they are doing. Their financial performance the past couple years seems to validate my opinions.

I wonder if they fixed their point of sale system yet. The Sobey's point of sale system requires the cashier to first ask "debit or credit" then ask you what card issuer you are using (Visa, Master Card, etc.). Super clumsy process. At Safeway's point of sale system the register had one button that said "EFT Tender" and the cashier pressed that for all card tenders and the system/customer prompts figured out the rest. The last time I saw a store with that set up was a Grand Union in New York with circa 1995 cash registers. Sobeys registers obviously were newer (they ripped out the Safeway stuff and installed what looked like modern registers) but clearly decades behind on technology.
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Re: Sobeys Buys Canada Safeway

Post by BillyGr »

storewanderer wrote:I wonder if they fixed their point of sale system yet. The Sobey's point of sale system requires the cashier to first ask "debit or credit" then ask you what card issuer you are using (Visa, Master Card, etc.). Super clumsy process. At Safeway's point of sale system the register had one button that said "EFT Tender" and the cashier pressed that for all card tenders and the system/customer prompts figured out the rest. The last time I saw a store with that set up was a Grand Union in New York with circa 1995 cash registers. Sobeys registers obviously were newer (they ripped out the Safeway stuff and installed what looked like modern registers) but clearly decades behind on technology.
Not surprising (the Grand Union comment) since right up through the bankruptcy they still had at least some of their older stores still using hand checkout (no scanning, all items tagged including sales each week) and that was in 2001!
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