Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

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pseudo3d
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by pseudo3d »

I was going to post this earlier, but I can see why Kroger wants to sell them off, since a lot of the stores aren't in their markets (Turkey Hill's eastern stores and Tom Thumb comes to mind) and don't provide the synergy with their flagship supemarkets. Tom Thumb in Florida, for instance...when Kroger bought Harris Teeter that included HT's lone Florida store I thought they might be interested in taking on Publix and the weakened Winn-Dixie, but that never happened.

They did invest in Lucky's Market which seems to be opening a lot of Florida stores but I feel like Kroger needs to put up or shut up in terms of Lucky's Market, because it's gaining ground in areas where Kroger doesn't seem to want to go, but just seems like a waste of resources otherwise when that could be going in improving operations or stores, and it would be bad for Kroger if Albertsons started getting its head screwed on correctly and going after weakened Smith's and Fred Meyer stores.
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by storewanderer »

Without knowing the exact arrangement between Kroger and "Lucky's" it is hard to really speculate much about it. "Lucky's" does operate with some Kroger banners. They are about to open a new store in Fort Collins, CO which is a very heavy King Soopers town. There seems to be zero Kroger merchandising, logistics, or systems involvement with "Lucky's." So I am not sure about the scope of the investment Kroger made there.

If Albertsons has not already captured some market share from Kroger in the past few years, I'm not sure they will capture it in the future. Kroger has practically handed them market share by not expanding in any meaningful way in CA, OR, or WA while Albertsons has grown store count significantly in those markets. Both chains have been posting lousy same store sales, though Kroger's have gotten a little better as of late. Either people are buying less food from supermarkets or both companies are losing customers. Or a combination of both.

Not to mention how poor of a job Kroger does keeping items in stock. And it keeps getting poorer. The other thing I am noticing lately is when items go out of stock, basic grocery items, they seem to be out of stock for a few days. I understand that sort of thing with drug/non food that is not delivered to the store often, but with basic grocery items being out of stock for that long is a problem. This especially seems to be a problem after a hot sale/ad where they run out of stock toward the end of the ad period then don't restock again for a few days after the ad ends. I assume the warehouse is out of stock.
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by storewanderer »

Kroger CFO said in December to expect an announcement about this in January.

Given recent events last week with one of the potential purchasers and a US Government Agency, I wonder if we will be seeing an announcement.
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote: January 13th, 2018, 11:53 am Kroger CFO said in December to expect an announcement about this in January.

Given recent events last week with one of the potential purchasers and a US Government Agency, I wonder if we will be seeing an announcement.
I doubt it's 7-Eleven. 7-Eleven is in the middle of closing their deal with Sunoco to buy most of their stores. Between Circle K absorbing Corner Store and 7-Eleven and Sunoco it's unlikely to see anything between those two.
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by storewanderer »

Looks like Casey's has emerged as a bidder.

I think the Loaf N Jug and Kwik Shops are a pretty good fit for Casey's. Turkey Hill and Tom Thumb are also probably decent fits but not geographically logical. All of those operations make some effort on in-store food service. At least a few newer stores in these divisions...

Quik Stop is a very poor fit for Casey's. Mostly franchised. Limited efforts on in-store food service. Few modern stores.

It will be interesting to see what happens.
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote: January 29th, 2018, 9:48 pm Looks like Casey's has emerged as a bidder.

I think the Loaf N Jug and Kwik Shops are a pretty good fit for Casey's. Turkey Hill and Tom Thumb are also probably decent fits but not geographically logical. All of those operations make some effort on in-store food service. At least a few newer stores in these divisions...

Quik Stop is a very poor fit for Casey's. Mostly franchised. Limited efforts on in-store food service. Few modern stores.

It will be interesting to see what happens.
The big question is what will happen to Kroger operations inside the stores (like how there's at least one Tom Thumb in FL with a Kroger pharmacy, if that will remain, if that will transition, or if that will close outright). Turkey Hill sounds like it has enough local heritage that it sounds like it would make more sense to give it a new logo.
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by mjhale »

I've always been curious why Kroger picked up Turkey Hill and the Turkey Hill Minit Markets. Kroger's only presence in Turkey Hill's core area would have been Western PA in the Pittsburgh area. But Kroger sold the Pittsburgh stores in 1984 one year prior to purchasing Turkey Hill. Outside PA the closest Kroger stores at the time of the purchase would have been in Southern and Southwestern Virginia. To me Turkey Hill just doesn't seem like a fit to Kroger's grocery operations since they were so far away at time of purchase. Even now with the purchase of Harris Teeter they don't have stores in PA. The closest Harris Teeter locations are in the Baltimore market if Kroger was looking to supply its grocery stores with products from the dairy side of Turkey Hill. Though I realize that Kroger probably makes some good money off selling Turkey Hill ice cream products and drinks to other grocers and convenience stores. Speaking of the convenience store end I've always thought of Turkey Hill Minit Markets as a second tier store below Sheetz and Wawa. As I write this I'm feeling like I'm writing a thesis statement on why Kroger should sell off Turkey Hill and the Minit Markets...
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by storewanderer »

I do not think the Turkey Hill Dairy is for sale. Only the c-stores are for sale.

The c-stores that stand away from other Kroger operations (Turkey Hill, Quik Stop, Tom Thumb) do tend to be a little less, should we say, inspired, than the ones that stand alongside other operations (Loaf N Jug and Kwik Shop) but generally these stores seem to do pretty well. Historically I believe they have enjoyed higher than industry average sales on fuel and in-store and this has been achieved through a variety of stronger price promotions, reliable selection of items, and such. Many of these Kroger c-stores have very high shelves for merchandise and have a far more extensive mix of packaged goods than usual c-stores have. The coffee program they have is reliable as well.

But there are a lot of pretty old, out of date sites scattered throughout this network. These are clearly not Quik Trips but they are better than the typical old 7-Eleven or Circle K despite having a fairly similar condition/design.
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by mbz321 »

mjhale wrote: January 31st, 2018, 5:04 pm Speaking of the convenience store end I've always thought of Turkey Hill Minit Markets as a second tier store below Sheetz and Wawa. As I write this I'm feeling like I'm writing a thesis statement on why Kroger should sell off Turkey Hill and the Minit Markets...
I think Turkey Hill does well as they have locations pretty much everywhere...they seem to be the '7-11' of Lancaster County and the surrounding region, as 7-11 is non existent in the area except for maybe a store or two around Harrisburg the last time I looked. But they are definitely nothing special.
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Re: Kroger May Sell Off Its Convenience Store Chains, Including Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb, Turkey Hill

Post by arizonaguy »

They've sold the stores to a British company called EG Group for $2.15 billion.

The supermarket fuel centers and Turkey Hill Dairy are not part of the transaction.

Source: http://www.theshelbyreport.com/2018/02/ ... store-biz/
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