🛒 Kroger-Albertsons Merger: Midwest & Plains Impact

[submariner]

A place to discuss the impact of the Kroger-Albertsons merger, specifically on the midwest & plains regions.

[Super S]

The Midwest might be the least impacted region of all if this merger goes through. By far the least amount of overlap of any region.

[storewanderer]

There is impact here.

There is various Kroger-Jewel overlap outside Chicago. Neither brand appears to be doing very well in these markets (Hy Vee and Wal Mart seem to be beating them).

Mariano's and Food 4 Less around Chicagoland have significant overlap with Jewel Osco. Mariano's and Jewel Osco both seem to be very successful. F4L - looks like it is surviving... not thriving by any means.

[wnetmacman]

There is impact here.

There is various Kroger-Jewel overlap outside Chicago. Neither brand appears to be doing very well in these markets (Hy Vee and Wal Mart seem to be beating them).

Mariano's and Food 4 Less around Chicagoland have significant overlap with Jewel Osco. Mariano's and Jewel Osco both seem to be very successful. F4L - looks like it is surviving... not thriving by any means.

As I understood, with the divestitures, Mariano's will be the entity sold off, thus leaving little, if any, impact to the direct Chicagoland area.

Jewel has largely left most, but not all areas outside Chicago. It's a far cry from what they used to own with Eisner, which no longer exists.

[rwsandiego]

...
As I understood, with the divestitures, Mariano's will be the entity sold off, thus leaving little, if any, impact to the direct Chicagoland area...

Kroger plans to divest fourteen stores in Illinois. Mariano's has 44 locations. Either Kroger will be required to divest additional stores or at least 30 Mariano's will be rebranded to Jewel-Osco.

[storewanderer]

...
As I understood, with the divestitures, Mariano's will be the entity sold off, thus leaving little, if any, impact to the direct Chicagoland area...

Kroger plans to divest fourteen stores in Illinois. Mariano's has 44 locations. Either Kroger will be required to divest additional stores or at least 30 Mariano's will be rebranded to Jewel-Osco.

Will they rebrand to Jewel-Osco or will they rebrand to Metro Market (essentially a lesser quality but very similar in layout/design/products copy of Mariano's that Pick N Save runs up in WI) and basically continue as they are?

Also I do not think all 14 IL Stores they propose to divest will be Mariano's. I expect some will be F4L Stores and some may even be Kroger banner stores.

[retailfanmitchell019]

There is impact here.

There is various Kroger-Jewel overlap outside Chicago. Neither brand appears to be doing very well in these markets (Hy Vee and Wal Mart seem to be beating them).

Kroger and Jewel banners have overlap in Bloomington/Normal, IL. According to the 2021 Kroger fact book, Jewel is #2 in market share there, behind Walmart. In addition to Hy-Vee and Walmart, Kroger/Jewel competes with Schnucks and Meijer in Bloomington/Normal.

There is a Kroger banner store in Bourbonnais, IL. In Kankakee County, which is a Chicago exurban county. That’s the sole Kroger banner in the Chicago metro.

[storewanderer]

There is impact here.

There is various Kroger-Jewel overlap outside Chicago. Neither brand appears to be doing very well in these markets (Hy Vee and Wal Mart seem to be beating them).

Kroger and Jewel banners have overlap in Bloomington/Normal, IL. According to the 2021 Kroger fact book, Jewel is #2 in market share there, behind Walmart. In addition to Hy-Vee and Walmart, Kroger/Jewel competes with Schnucks and Meijer in Bloomington/Normal.

There is a Kroger banner store in Bourbonnais, IL. In Kankakee County, which is a Chicago exurban county. That’s the sole Kroger banner in the Chicago metro.

Jewel has one store in Bloomington/Normal that is doing almost no business. The other two appear to do okay. Kroger has one store that looks to do well and two others that do not appear to do great. All of these Kroger operations are very old stores. The one that does well is recently remodeled and has a fuel station, and close to the very slow Jewel. Schnucks has one store in the southern area that does almost no business and a store in the northern area that lacks competition and seems to do at least some business but not what it should be doing (both are nice stores... I'd shop them over the Jewel and Kroger units anytime). Hy Vee is very tough competition. Fresh Thyme is there too and I'm not sure how they're doing or how much volume they actually need to do... There is a lot of competition in that market and there is going to be fall out and it will be multiple operators who have fall out. The operators I don't expect to have any fall out are Wal Mart, Meijer, and Hy-Vee. I also expect Hy-Vee to add a store. Depending where they add a store may or may not cause fall out. If they add a store in the northern part of that area I expect one chain will exit the market entirely.

[rwsandiego]

...
As I understood, with the divestitures, Mariano's will be the entity sold off, thus leaving little, if any, impact to the direct Chicagoland area...

Kroger plans to divest fourteen stores in Illinois. Mariano's has 44 locations. Either Kroger will be required to divest additional stores or at least 30 Mariano's will be rebranded to Jewel-Osco.

Will they rebrand to Jewel-Osco or will they rebrand to Metro Market (essentially a lesser quality but very similar in layout/design/products copy of Mariano's that Pick N Save runs up in WI) and basically continue as they are?

Also I do not think all 14 IL Stores they propose to divest will be Mariano's. I expect some will be F4L Stores and some may even be Kroger banner stores.

There is no way Kroger can get away with divesting only 14 stores in metro Chicago and downstate Illinois. In the runup to acquiring Albertsons, Supervalu sold the Chicagoland Cub stores to independents in an effort to avoid antitrust issues. Kroger should do the same with F4L and most of Mariano's.

That said, I don't see Kroger re-branding the Mariano's units it retains to Metro Market. It's an unfamiliar name and rebranding Mariano's to Jewel will solidify Jewel's #1 market share ranking. They can just re-brand them to Jewel-Osco and call the specialty and prepared foods sections the Jewel Food Hall or some such.

[storewanderer]

There is no way Kroger can get away with divesting only 14 stores in metro Chicago and downstate Illinois. In the runup to acquiring Albertsons, Supervalu sold the Chicagoland Cub stores to independents in an effort to avoid antitrust issues. Kroger should do the same with F4L and most of Mariano's.

That said, I don't see Kroger re-branding the Mariano's units it retains to Metro Market. It's an unfamiliar name and rebranding Mariano's to Jewel will solidify Jewel's #1 market share ranking. They can just re-brand them to Jewel-Osco and call the specialty and prepared foods sections the Jewel Food Hall or some such.

I agree on divesting the 14 stores being a complete pipe dream.

Mariano's is a difficult situation. Objectively speaking, pretty much anyone who shops Mariano's, is very likely already passing an existing Jewel (or multiple Jewels) to shop there at Mariano's. So I am not sure how well rebranding those to Jewel would work out. The majority of the customer base at Mariano's is there because they've chosen to not shop at Jewel. Sort of like the 3 customers at Lucky in the bay area if they can find a store that isn't closing are there because they've chosen not to shop at Safeway. But the difference is Mariano's Stores are mostly quite busy, some are VERY busy, and some are busier than nearby Jewel units. They'd have to really keep those fresh departments under the Mariano's programs and convey the message that they are still like that (but then that would cause confusion for the mass of customers who see Jewel and expect a typical Jewel). Thinking along those lines is why I see some value in having those as a separate banner from Jewel.

In my view the downstate Kroger and Jewel units both have issues and both are positioned in a questionable spot in their markets. If you were to convert one brand to the other I'm sure some people would grumble about it but at the end of the day I'm not sure how many customers would care or how much it would really impact the performance of the stores.