I don't think these stores have received any remodeling or updating, they must be looking really worn down behind the scenes since Food4Less was operated by Fleming Co's.
From August inside Super Saver West Valley City via Yelp:
![Image](http://s3-media3.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/knGurFsRs0r2J1mFIF_g6A/o.jpg)
![Image](http://s3-media2.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/sd3239D6Myoy3ay6RPeH1w/o.jpg)
Within the last couple of weeks the Arizona Albertsons have become more and more saturated with the Safeway store brands. I was in an Albertsons about 2 weeks ago and noticed the following "transitional" period:pseudo3d wrote:I've visited an LLC Albertsons and a Safeway (Randalls) in the last few months, here's what I noticed--
- For both, "Signature" brands are rolled in, Essential Everyday and "Safeway" branded products are out.
- Both have the same type of yellow signs for sales.
- Numerous sales at Randalls still require the card.
- The Safeway deli is now 2/3 Dietz & Watson, Primo Taglio on way out
- The Albertsons now brags "Signature Cafe" fried chicken, not sure if it's the Albertsons recipe (which the Oak Harbor Safeway had) under a new name or Safeway's recipe
I can't see Albertsons being dumb enough to force cards on its shoppers again, but the Safeway database seems too sweet to give up. Probably what will end up happening is just a rewards card, like MyMixx for ACME.
Not sure on comparison prices because there's no stores where I currently live (even though trucks go through town) and I haven't stuck around in the cities that do have them to compare them to the competition.
EDIT: also from what I heard, the Safeway store brands have also swept through ACME
Shaw's as well - in fact their page had some folks who were quite upset with this "new Lucerne brand" stuff that Shaw's had replaced their brand with.pseudo3d wrote: EDIT: also from what I heard, the Safeway store brands have also swept through ACME
The addition of the Safeway brands in Jewel-Osco didn't seem to go over that badly, but the biggest problem of Safeway's acquired stores wasn't just the brand names replacing other generics, it was everything. From what I could tell, Randalls didn't have a strong store name in the early 1990s, but Safeway did away with its service and most of its wide selections when it acquired them (it didn't help that some Randalls were much larger than Safeway stores, 75k-80k square foot), Dominick's prices went up and merchandising went away, and Genuardi likely the same. It's not just brand names in these types of things, it's the way they operated and ran the stores. One of the first things Albertsons did after acquiring United was put in the SVU brand names, but United kept some of their in-house ones, and of course, they still ran the stores like always.storewanderer wrote:I actually think some of the private label programs in place at Albertsons (Equaline, Wild Harvest specifically) probably should have been kept... Safeway's brands are not "all that" despite being fairly heavily pushed. Safeway's brands pissed people off before in places like IL, TX, PA... those brands may be more of a liability than an asset in some places.
I've been reading a lot of quality complaints on the Safeway Facebook page on Lucerne items, specifically milk, a few weeks ago. I also had some really poor Pantry Essentials Milk a number of years ago and have not bought any Safeway-produced dairy products since. Pretty easy to avoid since here in NV, Safeway charges $3.99 for a gallon of Pantry Essentials milk and generic milk at Raleys and Smiths is 2.78 EDLP, Scolaris has generic milk $3, and Save Mart has generic milk $2.99.
Some of the quality control also has to do with storage. I have seen instances where sometimes milk will be moved out to room temperature for an hour or two to clean a cooler, then put back inside the cooler. I have also seen instances of milk being delivered in non-refrigerated trucks (mainly at independent stores)pseudo3d wrote: As for the milk brands, keep in mind that the milk sold in Safeway/Albertsons stores east of the Mountain Time Zone are outsourced (they have their own milk plants in the "original" divisions). Maybe it's time to switch suppliers, or procure more milk plants.