Kroger/Safeway/Albertsons banners: One banner seen in another

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Kroger/Safeway/Albertsons banners: One banner seen in another

Post by architect »

Recently, I have had several instances of seeing signage/logos for out-of-markets banners at both Kroger and Tom Thumb stores around DFW (far more common with Tom Thumb though).

At a Dallas Kroger, I recently saw some low prices signage which was being prepared to be hung in the store. Problem is, the signage has the Fry's logo rather than Kroger's. I am not sure if the signage was acdtually hung, or if it was swapped for the correct signage as I have not been back to that particular store yet.

At Tom Thumb, these banner mixups have been quite common for a while. Up until the Albertsons-Safeway merger, Tom Thumb and Randalls were often co-advertised, so it was not uncommon to occasionally see one banner's logo at the other store. However, these occurrences seem to be growing far more frequent now. At multiple DFW Tom Thumb stores, I have seen both the Safeway and Albertsons brands used on the screens of self-checkouts (although the card reader screens have the Tom Thumb logo). Actually, at the Lovers/Greenville store recently, I saw a self-checkout with three banners represented: Tom Thumb on the card reader, Safeway on the self checkout screen itself, and a Randalls instruction label stuck to the bottom of the bagging area. In addition, I have seen Randalls carts/baskets at multiple Tom Thumb stores, along with at least two Safeway baskets at the Preston/Frankfort Tom Thumb in Dallas.

Has anyone else noticed instances of this in other markets?
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Re: Kroger/Safeway/Albertsons banners: One banner seen in another

Post by Super S »

The big one is the Kroger brand appearing in markets where there aren't any Kroger-named stores, but Kroger has ownership of chains such as Fred Meyer and QFC.

But I also occasionally see Vons trucks making deliveries at Safeway and Albertsons stores as well as Safeway trucks pulling Albertsons trailers and vice versa.

I have also been to one Albertsons which was using Safeway bags that did not have any mention of Albertsons on them.
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Re: Kroger/Safeway/Albertsons banners: One banner seen in another

Post by architect »

Super S wrote: March 18th, 2018, 10:12 am The big one is the Kroger brand appearing in markets where there aren't any Kroger-named stores, but Kroger has ownership of chains such as Fred Meyer and QFC.

But I also occasionally see Vons trucks making deliveries at Safeway and Albertsons stores as well as Safeway trucks pulling Albertsons trailers and vice versa.

I have also been to one Albertsons which was using Safeway bags that did not have any mention of Albertsons on them.
Actually, I have seen a similar situation with trucks taking place in Texas, where a mix of Albertsons, Tom Thumb, Randalls, United, Tom Thumb/Randalls and Tom Thumb/Albertsons branded trucks and trailers are all used. Much of this was even taking place before the Texas DC's were consolidated in DFW area, and Houston was shut down.

Also, in the Texas Safeway-owned stores, the private-label products were obviously branded with the Safeway branding for the most part prior to the Signature brands rollout, much like what you are talking about at other Kroger-owned banners. The only exceptions were generally bakery items and meat.
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Re: Kroger/Safeway/Albertsons banners: One banner seen in another

Post by jamcool »

The Vons/Albertsons trucks in SoCal have Vons/Albertsons/Pavilions on the on the cab door of the trucks
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Re: Kroger/Safeway/Albertsons banners: One banner seen in another

Post by storewanderer »

This has gotten very, very common. With Kroger it is difficult because often it may be a display of products (last seen was a few cardboard displays of tortilla chips with the Kroger logo plastered all over the displays) that are Kroger brand.

Then we have the odd Smiths gas station that just opened that has Smiths logo on half of the pump skirts and Kroger on the other half of the pump skirts.

I am also seeing more and more Albertsons things pop up at NorCal Safeway but it is primarily internal documents like training booklets, hiring signs, and such. Also a lot of seasonal goods that say "distributed by Albertsons." They would be wise to keep the Albertsons name and logo out of NorCal entirely, but I guess they are too proud of themselves to do that. I know they are the owner but that name is such damaged goods in NorCal it is best left out.
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