Ahold Delhaize creates Ahold Delhaize USA

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wnetmacman
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Re: Ahold Delhaize creates Ahold Delhaize USA

Post by wnetmacman »

Knight wrote: December 12th, 2017, 10:24 amFood Lion is still around indeed. Being around does not mean Food Lion is doing something right. Food Lion still has problems it has not resolved.
In the current retail landscape, still being around means you're doing something right. The companies that do things totally wrong and lose money get shut down by the investors. I'd be hard pressed to believe that Ahold is using Hannaford, Stop and Shop and the Giants to bankroll Food Lion. That would be a really bad move. Plus, some of the recent improvements they've been making seem to be helping.
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Re: Ahold Delhaize creates Ahold Delhaize USA

Post by pseudo3d »

wnetmacman wrote: December 12th, 2017, 11:56 am
Knight wrote: December 12th, 2017, 10:24 amFood Lion is still around indeed. Being around does not mean Food Lion is doing something right. Food Lion still has problems it has not resolved.
In the current retail landscape, still being around means you're doing something right. The companies that do things totally wrong and lose money get shut down by the investors. I'd be hard pressed to believe that Ahold is using Hannaford, Stop and Shop and the Giants to bankroll Food Lion. That would be a really bad move. Plus, some of the recent improvements they've been making seem to be helping.
"Still around" isn't a sign of doing something right, you just still have enough investors to keep things going. Nearly all retail bankruptcies (or major reorganizations) happen because the company has been going off the rails for several years. Food Lion may be profitable, but it clearly isn't a big winner. When Albertsons and Safeway merged, it was a merger of equals, more or less. Maybe the Safeway brands were favored slightly, but overall the stores that were bigger or had the better location were kept. With Royal Ahold and Delhaize, it was clearly not in Food Lion's favor. The companies were merged for the mainland European benefit, not for the American division, and when there was overlap between Food Lion and Ahold's brands, Ahold was the kept store unless the companies felt like they could get a better return on the investment.

Food Lion has been wasting away for years in the United States, and about five years ago they closed 100 stores and ended the Bloom project, and in the last five years have offloaded Harveys and Sweetbay to SEG, closed Bottom Dollar Foods (many of which went to ALDI), and had just enough money injected into it to keep it profitable and prevent mass closures like it did in the South. Perhaps that would've been the case if Delhaize had continued as an independent, with them running down leases and selling Hannaford off to an interested party. However, Food Lion is now stuck with the Ahold brands, and with loyalty cards being instituted at Hannaford it indicates that it's Ahold has the hold of Delhaize's former U.S. holdings and Hannaford will become more like Giant-MD, Giant-PA, and Stop & Shop. But Food Lion's position is in question. I can see the places where it overlaps with Giant-MD becoming Giant-Landover stores, but I don't know about the Food Lion stores south of it. Perhaps Ahold Delhaize will try to modernize the chain (possibly rebranding it) to build it into a smaller but stronger competitor in the Southeast that can match wits with Publix, Ingles, and others, or perhaps Ahold Delhaize will ignore Food Lion and use it to power the other chains as leases run out (or if someone is interested in sites).
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Re: Ahold Delhaize creates Ahold Delhaize USA

Post by Knight »

wnetmacman wrote: December 12th, 2017, 11:56 am In the current retail landscape, still being around means you're doing something right. The companies that do things totally wrong and lose money get shut down by the investors. I'd be hard pressed to believe that Ahold is using Hannaford, Stop and Shop and the Giants to bankroll Food Lion. That would be a really bad move. Plus, some of the recent improvements they've been making seem to be helping.
The sale of Harvey's, Reid's, and Sweetbay to BI-LO Holdings, now Southeastern Grocers, in 2013 and the sale of Bottom Dollar Food stores to Aldi helped bankroll Food Lion's "Easy, Fresh, and Affordable" campaign. Stores have received minimal updates, but they are not "easy, fresh, and affordable" yet.
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Re: Ahold Delhaize creates Ahold Delhaize USA

Post by wnetmacman »

Knight wrote: December 12th, 2017, 12:59 pmThe sale of Harvey's, Reid's, and Sweetbay to BI-LO Holdings, now Southeastern Grocers, in 2013 and the sale of Bottom Dollar Food stores to Aldi helped bankroll Food Lion's "Easy, Fresh, and Affordable" campaign. Stores have received minimal updates, but they are not "easy, fresh, and affordable" yet.
A sale of failing stores 4 years ago wasn't enough to keep FL afloat this long, as it was only for $265m. There weren't that many Bottom Dollar stores sold to Aldi (66) and they only got $15m, plus took a loss of $180m to do so.

I truly believe the stores they are still running, while possibly marginal, are profitable. We know Bottom Dollar wasn't, and Harvey's/Sweetbay/Reid's weren't, and most likely still aren't for SEG.

Essentially, Food Lion has always been the slow and steady little engine that could, and I wouldn't underestimate Ahold for holding on to them.
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Re: Ahold Delhaize creates Ahold Delhaize USA

Post by Knight »

Food Lion is celebrating sixty years of operation today.

Publix has been a slow and steady engine that could also. The difference is Publix continues to open additional stores and enter new markets; Food Lion continues to close stores and exit markets. Food Lion could learn a lot form Publix.
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Re: Ahold Delhaize creates Ahold Delhaize USA

Post by pseudo3d »

wnetmacman wrote: December 12th, 2017, 1:45 pm
Knight wrote: December 12th, 2017, 12:59 pmThe sale of Harvey's, Reid's, and Sweetbay to BI-LO Holdings, now Southeastern Grocers, in 2013 and the sale of Bottom Dollar Food stores to Aldi helped bankroll Food Lion's "Easy, Fresh, and Affordable" campaign. Stores have received minimal updates, but they are not "easy, fresh, and affordable" yet.
A sale of failing stores 4 years ago wasn't enough to keep FL afloat this long, as it was only for $265m. There weren't that many Bottom Dollar stores sold to Aldi (66) and they only got $15m, plus took a loss of $180m to do so.

I truly believe the stores they are still running, while possibly marginal, are profitable. We know Bottom Dollar wasn't, and Harvey's/Sweetbay/Reid's weren't, and most likely still aren't for SEG.

Essentially, Food Lion has always been the slow and steady little engine that could, and I wouldn't underestimate Ahold for holding on to them.
Ahold may not be in a hurry to dump Food Lion, but if they're used solely to pump up the other operations, then that will ultimately kill the chain. Historically, that's what happened to Hinky Dinky. Cullum Cos. bought the chain and used it to fuel Tom Thumb's growth in the 1970s and early 1980s while Hinky Dinky wasted away.
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Re: Ahold Delhaize creates Ahold Delhaize USA

Post by buckguy »

Food-Lion mostly seems to exist where it doesn't have much competition--a somewhat dispersed collection of rural locations from what I can see. treating it as a cash cow until the leases run out is probably the path of least resistance.
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Re: Ahold Delhaize creates Ahold Delhaize USA

Post by BillyGr »

pseudo3d wrote: December 12th, 2017, 12:43 pm The companies were merged for the mainland European benefit, not for the American division, and when there was overlap between Food Lion and Ahold's brands, Ahold was the kept store unless the companies felt like they could get a better return on the investment..
That may have occurred in the Food Lion areas, but not so much up north. In MA they did get rid of Hannaford stores, but that only made sense as Hannaford had a fairly small presence compared to Stop & Shop in that state. In NY the few overlaps that they got rid of were divided between S&S and Hannaford (as both have a similar number of locations in the Hudson Valley, so no real "leader").
pseudo3d wrote: December 12th, 2017, 12:43 pm However, Food Lion is now stuck with the Ahold brands, and with loyalty cards being instituted at Hannaford it indicates that it's Ahold has the hold of Delhaize's former U.S. holdings and Hannaford will become more like Giant-MD, Giant-PA, and Stop & Shop.
Haven't seen any such cards in Hannaford.

They were talking about something using a phone number, but that may very well be more like the MyMixx in the Albertson's brands (to allow for things like digital coupons and tracking for the various rewards/rebate programs but not required to get sales as the S&S/Giant brand cards are).

Actually Hannaford already has a similar version (the MyHannaford #, they send you stickers to scan @ checkout - I think that started years ago for the UPromise program to track purchases, but also is used for other rebate offers like SavingStar).
buckguy wrote: December 13th, 2017, 8:40 am Food-Lion mostly seems to exist where it doesn't have much competition--a somewhat dispersed collection of rural locations from what I can see. treating it as a cash cow until the leases run out is probably the path of least resistance.
Seems that keeping those types of stores would make sense - if there is no one else out there competing in those areas, they should do a reasonable business (see Grand Union post bankruptcy, now part of the Tops chain).
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Re: Ahold Delhaize creates Ahold Delhaize USA

Post by pseudo3d »

BillyGr wrote: December 13th, 2017, 2:09 pm
pseudo3d wrote: December 12th, 2017, 12:43 pm The companies were merged for the mainland European benefit, not for the American division, and when there was overlap between Food Lion and Ahold's brands, Ahold was the kept store unless the companies felt like they could get a better return on the investment..
That may have occurred in the Food Lion areas, but not so much up north. In MA they did get rid of Hannaford stores, but that only made sense as Hannaford had a fairly small presence compared to Stop & Shop in that state. In NY the few overlaps that they got rid of were divided between S&S and Hannaford (as both have a similar number of locations in the Hudson Valley, so no real "leader").
pseudo3d wrote: December 12th, 2017, 12:43 pm However, Food Lion is now stuck with the Ahold brands, and with loyalty cards being instituted at Hannaford it indicates that it's Ahold has the hold of Delhaize's former U.S. holdings and Hannaford will become more like Giant-MD, Giant-PA, and Stop & Shop.
Haven't seen any such cards in Hannaford.

They were talking about something using a phone number, but that may very well be more like the MyMixx in the Albertson's brands (to allow for things like digital coupons and tracking for the various rewards/rebate programs but not required to get sales as the S&S/Giant brand cards are).

Actually Hannaford already has a similar version (the MyHannaford #, they send you stickers to scan @ checkout - I think that started years ago for the UPromise program to track purchases, but also is used for other rebate offers like SavingStar).
buckguy wrote: December 13th, 2017, 8:40 am Food-Lion mostly seems to exist where it doesn't have much competition--a somewhat dispersed collection of rural locations from what I can see. treating it as a cash cow until the leases run out is probably the path of least resistance.
Seems that keeping those types of stores would make sense - if there is no one else out there competing in those areas, they should do a reasonable business (see Grand Union post bankruptcy, now part of the Tops chain).
Yeah, "loyalty card" was bad phrasing on my part, but the loyalty program institution still seems like not a coincidence with other the Ahold brands doing similar things, but who knows.
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Re: Ahold Delhaize creates Ahold Delhaize USA

Post by mjhale »

mbz321 wrote: December 12th, 2017, 10:22 am
wnetmacman wrote: December 12th, 2017, 6:18 am
Evidently, Food Lion is doing something right, because they're still around. They aren't shrinking at the same rate as, say Southeastern Grocers.

Yeah, I don't think Food Lion is doing that bad. Their prices are reasonable, and definitely lower than most competitors in the areas in which they operate (really, have you ever seen Publix prices?). Their stores aren't large or fancy, because they really don't have to be. And other extras like in-store Pharmacies seems to be a declining trend. Ahold has converted a couple of Martin's to Food Lion, so the banner must show some promises.
I'm curious to know where there has been a Martins to Food Lion conversion. I'd be interested to see what that would look like.
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