Kroger reportedly set to open two stores in Oakland, CA

[TheQuestioner]

The San Francisco Chronicle ran an article today, claiming that Kroger wants to open two stores in east Oakland, a particularly rough part of Oakland that has a dearth of full-service grocery stores.

The thing that surprises me is that they apparently plan to use the Kroger name, which to my knowledge has never been used on the West Coast. They used to have some Ralph's up in the Bay Area, as well as Cala/Bell, but those are all gone as far as I can tell.

Any idea why they would use the Kroger brand so far from their territory? Perhaps they are hoping to establish a beachhead here, and feel the Ralph's name is "tainted" up north? The article says "Foods Co., branded under Kroger, has signed a letter of intent with the developer at the Foothill Shopping Center." There are a smattering of Foods Co stores around here, but the way it is written, it makes it sound like the stores will be branded Kroger (and that Kroger is owned by Foods Co!) While clearly Kroger is the parent company, I wonder what is up with the Foods Co name being involved if those are not the names to be used on the stores. The whole history of Food4Less/Foods Co/FoodMaxx and the ownership of those brands in different regions is too convoluted for me to keep straight.

Original article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... oger17.DTL

[Alpha8472]

This news article is poorly written. What they meant is that Foods Co. is a brand under Kroger. Foods Co. will be the name on the stores. This other news article clearly states that Foods Co. will be opening, not Kroger.

http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/vi ... id/4316948

Foods Co. operates stores in low income areas. They feature prices lower than full service grocery stores. Oakland has many low income areas that cannot support full price supermarkets, so they are going to put in two Foods Co. stores that appeal to low income people.

It would make no sense to open full service, full price grocery stores in such low income neighborhoods. Lack of business due to high prices doomed the Albertsons store at Foothill Square. That store was originally a Lucky that did great business for over 20 years until Albertsons took over. Lucky was known for low prices and was very successful. High prices at Albertsons caused their customers to go elsewhere, and Albertsons decided to close the store.

[storewanderer]

This is very interesting. FoodsCo Stores sure are reserved for dangerous neighborhoods. They seem to be able to make the format work in some very rough areas in SoCal and IL, so things should work fine in Oakland. I do think, however, that there was a FoodsCo somewhere in Oakland in the very distant past... which was closed by the late 1990's. Same for FoodsCos in Concord and Marin City. So their tract record with these stores in NorCal isn't completely clean.

They can ask Quik Stop what it is like to do business in Oakland. There are some of those there.

[jamcool]

Isn't FoodsCo just the NorCal version of SoCal's Food4Less?

[Alpha8472]

In Southern California, Ralphs(Kroger) uses the Food 4 Less name. In Northern California, specifically the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento area, Nugget Markets uses the Food 4 Less name. They have one Food 4 Less in Vallejo which is northeast of San Francisco. Various stores throughout the country use the Food 4 Less name due to franchise agreements made with various wholesalers.

In Northern California, since the Food 4 Less name is already taken, Kroger uses the name Foods Co. However, the stores are run just like Food 4 Less stores. Technically, Ralphs owns the rights to the Food 4 Less name. However, franchise agreements allow various other wholesalers and supermarket chains to use the Food 4 Less name in some areas of the country.

[storewanderer]

There are some other people using F4L on a franchise basis in central California. There is PAQ in Stockton (also includes Manteca, Lodi, Atwater?) and Gong (I think) in Fresno and Selma. There is also a franchisee down in Atascadero or somewhere around there, but I think that one may have been purchased by PAQ. Also there is Nugget as you mentioned with locations in Woodland, Cameron Park, and Vallejo,.

Other than that, I don't think there are too many franchise F4L Stores remaining. There are a few up in Oregon; one in Medford and one in Portland. I don't know of any others. There are some in the midwest scattered in KS/MO supported by Associated Wholesale Grocers.

Kroger is marketing under the F4L name with one store in NE (Bakers/DIllons controls this, it came with Bakers from Fleming), IL, IN, SoCal, and Las Vegas under the F4L division (Ralphs). Technically Ralphs and F4L are not actually the same division, they just have a lot of shared facilities.