Western U.S. Market Share by Distribution Region

This is the place for general and miscellaneous posts on topics which might extend past the boundaries of any specific region. No non-grocery posts.
Post Reply
klkla
Posts: 1614
Joined: February 24th, 2009, 3:26 pm
Been thanked: 2 times
Status: Offline

Western U.S. Market Share by Distribution Region

Post by klkla »

The Shelby Report recently published a tribute to Stater Bros. for their 80th anniversary but included a page that lists market share by distribution regions instead of traditional MSA's.

It's an interesting way to look at the industry (this was six months ago). Some highlights:

Seattle/Tacoma/Olympia/Bellingham/Yakima:
Albertson's/Safeway 32.6%
QFC/Fred Meyer (I combined their totals) 23%
Unified Grocers 10.7%
Walmart 10.7%
Winco 4.3%

Portland/Salem/Eugene/Medford/Vancouver
Albertson's/Safeway 30.4%
Fred Meyer 20.6%
Walmart 14.3%
Unified Grocers 11.2%
Winco 9.2%

Arizona
Walmart 26.5%
Fry's 22.9%
Albertson's/Safeway 22.1%
Bashas 12.3%

Eastern Washington/Idaho/Missoula Montana
Alberton's/Safeway 27%
Walmart 26.2%
U.R.M. Stores 23%
Winco 6.3%

Rest of Montana/Wyoming
Alberton's/Safeway 36%
Walmart 32%
Associated Food Stores 10.8%
Supervalu 10.6%

Southern California/Las Vegas
Albertson's/Safeway 20.4%
Ralphs (Kroger) 16.8%
Unified Grocers 16.6%
Walmart 11%
Stater Bros. 8.9%

Northern California/Reno
Albertson's/Safeway 26.7%
Super Store Industries 13.4%
Savemart 12.7%
C&S 11.9%
Walmart 9.8%
Raley's 9.8%

I just included highlights. You can read the details here:
http://issuu.com/shelbypublishing/docs/ ... 7/33622730

I found it interesting how dominant Albertson's/Safeway is in almost all these regions. Also, Unified's clients in total are much bigger than I thought. I was also surprised to see that SaveMart is bigger than Raley's.
J-Man
Personnel Manager
Personnel Manager
Posts: 296
Joined: April 10th, 2011, 4:14 pm
Been thanked: 17 times
Status: Offline

Re: Western U.S. Market Share by Distribution Region

Post by J-Man »

Interesting post. But several questions:

1. What are "C&S" and "Super Store Industries?"
2. There are no Ralphs in Las Vegas; does the total for Kroger include the Smiths stores there?
3. No Sprouts, Gelsons, or Whole Foods? Are they all smaller than the smallest player for each area?
klkla
Posts: 1614
Joined: February 24th, 2009, 3:26 pm
Been thanked: 2 times
Status: Offline

Re: Western U.S. Market Share by Distribution Region

Post by klkla »

J-Man wrote:Interesting post. But several questions:

1. What are "C&S" and "Super Store Industries?"
2. There are no Ralphs in Las Vegas; does the total for Kroger include the Smiths stores there?
3. No Sprouts, Gelsons, or Whole Foods? Are they all smaller than the smallest player for each area?
C&S is a wholesaler. I'm not sure about Super Store Industries. They list Sunnyside Farms as a brand and their website seems to indicate they are a dairy. It lists 166 stores which would make them bigger than Raleys or SaveMart so it seems suspect. Storewanderer may have better insight being as he his from that region. Sounds like an anomaly or type to me.

The store count for Kroger/Fry's seems to be about the same as Smiths in Las Vegas so that is also likely a typo.

Whole Foods is listed in some areas but not others. Gelson's is likely listed as part of Unified Grocers. I have no idea about Sprouts.

I wouldn't take this listing as gospel. I just thought it was an interesting article. The Shelby Report seems like a generally reliable source, however.
storewanderer
Posts: 14387
Joined: February 23rd, 2009, 3:54 pm
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 298 times
Contact:
Status: Online

Re: Western U.S. Market Share by Distribution Region

Post by storewanderer »

Super Store Industries is Raleys/Save Mart joint venture distribution network and dairy network, also the Sunny Select and Sunnyside labels are theirs. The SSI distribution center supplies most of the dry grocery items for both Raleys and Save Mart now (previously, Save Mart was pulling some dry goods for the former Albertsons in the bay area, Sacramento, and Reno from a facility it owned and operated in Vacaville which closed a few months ago). Raleys also has a distribution center in Sacramento that supplies some of its own product.

So up until recently you had this set up:

Super Store Industries Dry/Refrigerated (huge facility)- supplies all core dry grocery to all central valley Save Mart/Food Maxx, supplies some core dry grocery to Raleys, supplies all dry grocery to Raleys-owned Food Source
Super Store Industries Frozen- supplies all frozen to all central valley Save Mart/Food Maxx and all frozen to all Raleys
Save Mart Roseville Distribution (old Albertsons NorCal distribution from the early 1990's, a fairly small facility)- supplies refrigerated/perishable items to the bay area/Sacramento/Reno former Albertsons locations
Save Mart Vacaville Distribution- (very large old Lucky distribution) this is the center that was closed recently and its work was all transferred to Super Store Industries Dry: it supplied dry grocery to all bay area/Sacramento/Reno Save Mart and Food Maxx

Save Mart has another small distribution center of its own called Yosemite that supplies drug/seasonal to all of its stores.
Raleys on contrast orders all of its drug/seasonal from Unified (after just selling a small distribution center of its own that handled these items to Unified).

Raleys has only 120 stores and Save Mart has about 220 stores so it makes sense they are larger. Raleys is a good operator with stores that veer larger but I feel do not operate to their potential.

C&S (former Fleming NorCal center and former Ralphs NorCal center) is supplying most of the stronger (relatively speaking) regionals in NorCal or those with store count of more than a couple stores (they supply Nugget, Scolaris in Nevada, Holiday/Sav Mor, Rancho San Miguel), all of the franchise Food 4 Less Stores including central coast, part of the supply agreement for the NorCal FoodsCos, and most of the IGAs in NorCal/Central Valley (maybe 20 or so stores). Most of the stores C&S is supplying are medium volume operations (about 25-30 high volume ones get thrown in by Nugget, the F4L operators, and FoodsCo). So I think C&S is supplying about 100 or so medium, on average, volume stores in NorCal/NV. C&S handles Best Yet, IGA, and Kroger private label in NorCal.

Most of the C&S clients have small distribution of their own for fresh/perishable. In the case of FoodsCo, C&S serves as the "fast moving" distribution and sends things like canned goods, juices, soda, longer shelf life dairy, and such. The "slow moving" items like drug and spices, along with milk/bread all come up from SoCal. C&S supplies only FoodsCo NorCal; Reno Smiths are supplied from Utah.
pseudo3d
Posts: 3853
Joined: November 12th, 2015, 7:01 pm
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 77 times
Status: Offline

Re: Western U.S. Market Share by Distribution Region

Post by pseudo3d »

Even if it's not 100% accurate, the fact that ABS/SWY tops out in the West Coast above Kroger and even just about matches Fry's in Arizona is impressive (I don't think it does volume, though...that's the kicker).
klkla
Posts: 1614
Joined: February 24th, 2009, 3:26 pm
Been thanked: 2 times
Status: Offline

Re: Western U.S. Market Share by Distribution Region

Post by klkla »

storewanderer wrote:Super Store Industries is Raleys/Save Mart joint venture distribution network and dairy network, also the Sunny Select and Sunnyside labels are theirs. The SSI distribution center supplies most of the dry grocery items for both Raleys and Save Mart now (previously, Save Mart was pulling some dry goods for the former Albertsons in the bay area, Sacramento, and Reno from a facility it owned and operated in Vacaville which closed a few months ago). Raleys also has a distribution center in Sacramento that supplies some of its own product.
That makes sense. Thanks for the info.
pseudo3d wrote:Even if it's not 100% accurate, the fact that ABS/SWY tops out in the West Coast above Kroger and even just about matches Fry's in Arizona is impressive (I don't think it does volume, though...that's the kicker).
You're right about the volume. You can extrapolate average weekly volume from these estimates. in AZ Fry's averages $505,547 and Albertson's/Safeway averages $422,695 meaning the average Fry's does about 20% more volume.
storewanderer
Posts: 14387
Joined: February 23rd, 2009, 3:54 pm
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 298 times
Contact:
Status: Online

Re: Western U.S. Market Share by Distribution Region

Post by storewanderer »

It is no surprise that Albertsons is topping Kroger on the west coast. Look at their new store growth (much of it propelled by Haggen but it all counts) vs. that of Kroger. Kroger has opened virtually no new stores in California, Oregon, or Washington in the past 5-10 years. I suspect the number is less than ten. To add more to that, how many new stores does Kroger even have in the pipeline in California, Oregon, or Washington? Any? I know Utah and Arizona have a lot of projects for Kroger right now and Nevada has one or two but the entire west coast is a dead zone on new store development for Kroger for some reason I am not quite clear on.
pseudo3d
Posts: 3853
Joined: November 12th, 2015, 7:01 pm
Has thanked: 5 times
Been thanked: 77 times
Status: Offline

Re: Western U.S. Market Share by Distribution Region

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote:It is no surprise that Albertsons is topping Kroger on the west coast. Look at their new store growth (much of it propelled by Haggen but it all counts) vs. that of Kroger. Kroger has opened virtually no new stores in California, Oregon, or Washington in the past 5-10 years. I suspect the number is less than ten. To add more to that, how many new stores does Kroger even have in the pipeline in California, Oregon, or Washington? Any? I know Utah and Arizona have a lot of projects for Kroger right now and Nevada has one or two but the entire west coast is a dead zone on new store development for Kroger for some reason I am not quite clear on.
I haven't heard a whole lot of the only new development to come out of West Coast Kroger, Main & Vine, and apparently that's still in the "experimental" phase, though I think that it will be one of those stores that serves as a source for new ideas and not necessarily the first of its kind.

Kroger always wants to maintain high market share, and that's where their Dillon's-sourced purchases and namesake stores really shine. In those areas, Kroger runs circles around Albertsons, as they have huge market shares in areas where Albertsons has a small percentage or none (there are exceptions, of course).

If Albertsons continues to rule the West Coast and alternative grocers continue to grow, then it seems more and more of a strange position for Kroger to be there if its market share is small. Then again, Kroger's shares in LA and Chicagoland ARE much smaller than Albertsons, but due to their profitability it is hard to see them giving up on those markets.
storewanderer
Posts: 14387
Joined: February 23rd, 2009, 3:54 pm
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 298 times
Contact:
Status: Online

Re: Western U.S. Market Share by Distribution Region

Post by storewanderer »

Main & Vine isn't really new development since it is only one store and a converted QFC at that. It looks like it is more of a learning lab for Kroger at this time vs. an expansion vehicle.

You raise a good point that Kroger's share in the Dillons purchased areas like CO and AZ is quite a bit stronger than their share in the former Fred Meyer markets like CA, OR, WA. Smiths share is pretty strong in UT, NM, and NV though.

I still believe Kroger's per store volumes are significantly higher than Albertsons/Safeway throughout OR. In WA with QFC, (quite small and not very high volume stores) I am not so sure. But the average Fred Meyer in WA does far, far more volume than a typical Safeway/Albertsons in grocery sales alone (ignoring the other 80,000 square feet in the Fred Meyer stores that have non food which add even more volume).

Kroger's position in OR/WA is very solid with Fred Meyer and QFC; both are successful and very well liked chains. I think Ralphs in CA is a bit more questionable but as others on this board have pointed out who are from SoCal and much more familiar with that market than I am, Ralphs has some really strong positions especially around Los Angeles and does have a fairly good core of high volume stores.
Post Reply