Aldi lists job openings at multiple warehouses and nearly 30 stores in Northern California

[HCal]

I think the 99 Only and Rite Aid closures will be a real estate jackpot for Aldi. Many of those SoCal Rite Aids are in that 22k square foot range (former Thrifty units) with the grocery co-anchor long gone so I expect Aldi can move in. I do not think Aldi is a good addition to the market but it is what it is and it is a lower cost option so there is a definite need for it. Also a great real estate opportunity for Grocery Outlet. But there are some issues over at Grocery Outlet with inventory right now and it is becoming more and more evident the lack of close out merchandise and higher costs for what they are finding to sell. I don't see that inventory issue with Aldi- Aldi knows how to get inventory and has suppliers they seem to be working with who can "scale up" for their growth.

But on the flip side, the demise of 99 Only might make it easier for Grocery Outlet to obtain closeout deals. I often saw both chains get the same item at the same time, and then sell out of it at around the same time. So with less competition, Grocery Outlet might be able to get some more deals.

However, they need to do a better job of keeping shelves stocked with essentials. If there is no closeout offer, they should source it like normal. They already do this for dairy and some other essential categories where a consistent supply is needed.

[storewanderer]

I think the 99 Only and Rite Aid closures will be a real estate jackpot for Aldi. Many of those SoCal Rite Aids are in that 22k square foot range (former Thrifty units) with the grocery co-anchor long gone so I expect Aldi can move in. I do not think Aldi is a good addition to the market but it is what it is and it is a lower cost option so there is a definite need for it. Also a great real estate opportunity for Grocery Outlet. But there are some issues over at Grocery Outlet with inventory right now and it is becoming more and more evident the lack of close out merchandise and higher costs for what they are finding to sell. I don't see that inventory issue with Aldi- Aldi knows how to get inventory and has suppliers they seem to be working with who can "scale up" for their growth.

But on the flip side, the demise of 99 Only might make it easier for Grocery Outlet to obtain closeout deals. I often saw both chains get the same item at the same time, and then sell out of it at around the same time. So with less competition, Grocery Outlet might be able to get some more deals.

However, they need to do a better job of keeping shelves stocked with essentials. If there is no closeout offer, they should source it like normal. They already do this for dairy and some other essential categories where a consistent supply is needed.

Grocery Outlet needs to figure out a way to get better pricing on "consistent supply" items they offer in essential categories. Their odd scattered geography will not make this any easier. You've mentioned they do this on certain items and noted the pricing is not competitive at all; I think we see this on nuts, milk, flour, sugar, vinegar, and some spices. Many of these items have pretty long shelf lives. Then if they can find a closeout item in said category they bring it in and blow it out at stronger pricing. It appears they may not order enough of these consistent supply items to get good deals out of suppliers, because they don't know how much they will actually need, because they don't know what closeout deals may be presented to them in the future. I'm not sure what their answer is- get with UNFI or Topco and get a deal to source Essential Everyday/Food Club items in some of these categories? They already do some of their own private label with those expired from Albertsons/Lucky Harvest Day (nuts and peanut/almond butters)/Lady Lee (milk only) trademarks... they have never gone far really with those so clearly that is not a path they find to be worth expanding.

With the items that were at both 99 Only and Grocery Outlet, in the past (2015 etc.), those items would go blow out at 99 cents at 99 Only but now I see a lot of those same items Grocery Outlet tries to get 2.99 3.99 etc. for. Then once it gets close to expiration Grocery Outlet will do a great deal like .97 .47 .25 etc.

I do wonder how much the expansion of Grocery Outlet has contributed to the demise of 99 Only. I don't find Grocery Outlet to be particularly popular with Hispanic customers the way 99 Only was. However I think there may be a real problem that the Grocery Outlet expansion caused to 99 Only from a buying/product availability perspective.

[ClownLoach]

I think the 99 Only and Rite Aid closures will be a real estate jackpot for Aldi. Many of those SoCal Rite Aids are in that 22k square foot range (former Thrifty units) with the grocery co-anchor long gone so I expect Aldi can move in. I do not think Aldi is a good addition to the market but it is what it is and it is a lower cost option so there is a definite need for it. Also a great real estate opportunity for Grocery Outlet. But there are some issues over at Grocery Outlet with inventory right now and it is becoming more and more evident the lack of close out merchandise and higher costs for what they are finding to sell. I don't see that inventory issue with Aldi- Aldi knows how to get inventory and has suppliers they seem to be working with who can "scale up" for their growth.

But on the flip side, the demise of 99 Only might make it easier for Grocery Outlet to obtain closeout deals. I often saw both chains get the same item at the same time, and then sell out of it at around the same time. So with less competition, Grocery Outlet might be able to get some more deals.

However, they need to do a better job of keeping shelves stocked with essentials. If there is no closeout offer, they should source it like normal. They already do this for dairy and some other essential categories where a consistent supply is needed.

Grocery Outlet needs to figure out a way to get better pricing on "consistent supply" items they offer in essential categories. Their odd scattered geography will not make this any easier. You've mentioned they do this on certain items and noted the pricing is not competitive at all; I think we see this on nuts, milk, flour, sugar, vinegar, and some spices. Many of these items have pretty long shelf lives. Then if they can find a closeout item in said category they bring it in and blow it out at stronger pricing. It appears they may not order enough of these consistent supply items to get good deals out of suppliers, because they don't know how much they will actually need, because they don't know what closeout deals may be presented to them in the future. I'm not sure what their answer is- get with UNFI or Topco and get a deal to source Essential Everyday/Food Club items in some of these categories? They already do some of their own private label with those expired from Albertsons/Lucky Harvest Day (nuts and peanut/almond butters)/Lady Lee (milk only) trademarks... they have never gone far really with those so clearly that is not a path they find to be worth expanding.

With the items that were at both 99 Only and Grocery Outlet, in the past (2015 etc.), those items would go blow out at 99 cents at 99 Only but now I see a lot of those same items Grocery Outlet tries to get 2.99 3.99 etc. for. Then once it gets close to expiration Grocery Outlet will do a great deal like .97 .47 .25 etc.

I do wonder how much the expansion of Grocery Outlet has contributed to the demise of 99 Only. I don't find Grocery Outlet to be particularly popular with Hispanic customers the way 99 Only was. However I think there may be a real problem that the Grocery Outlet expansion caused to 99 Only from a buying/product availability perspective.

I have seen many Grocery Outlet operators who are aggressively targeting Asian customers here with expanded assortments. Lots of Korean, Vietnamese, and especially Filipino foods added to these stores which makes sense because of the stubborn refusal of Albertsons to give up any of their locations here so that more ethnic markets can open. 99 used to be very popular in the Asian community but they lost that business. I do agree that Grocery Outlet was likely a contributor to their demise.

[Alpha8472]

A new Grocery Outlet just opened in Dublin, California which is Northern California. It is owned a an Indian brother and sister. The store plays Indian music and has a large Asian section. It was very Asian oriented. There is a 99 Ranch across the street, but this Grocery Outlet seems to be busy.

[storewanderer]

I have seen many Grocery Outlet operators who are aggressively targeting Asian customers here with expanded assortments. Lots of Korean, Vietnamese, and especially Filipino foods added to these stores which makes sense because of the stubborn refusal of Albertsons to give up any of their locations here so that more ethnic markets can open. 99 used to be very popular in the Asian community but they lost that business. I do agree that Grocery Outlet was likely a contributor to their demise.

Grocery Outlet has found a way to source Asian products from a distributor and this is one of their initiatives to try to fill the shelves up. They sell the stuff at a slight discount 10%-20% less than what the Asian chains like 99 Ranch or Seafood City sell for and also hope to capture business from small Asian markets who buy the stuff to resell. So far from what I see sales on these products are very slow at the Grocery Outlet locations in my area. The items are nowhere near expiration. Kroger is also working with this distributor on expanding its Asian mix in many stores. Some of the Ralphs have very impressive mixes. Smiths mix not as good but better than any other grocer in the locations that have this slightly expanded mix (one store in Reno, and soon the remodel in Carson City- various in Las Vegas and even a few in Salt Lake City area). The slightly expanded mix at Smiths is about 20% the size of what some of the Ralphs have. The prices at Smiths are also about 25% lower across the board on these items. The only thing screwy about the Kroger program is they keep discontinuing then bringing back items, the same exact items. I don't quite understand it. There is one vinegar I buy that is filled with peppers and Smiths has literally added it, discontinued it, added it again, discontinued it again, and recently added it back in again.

[HCal]

Grocery Outlet has found a way to source Asian products from a distributor and this is one of their initiatives to try to fill the shelves up. They sell the stuff at a slight discount 10%-20% less than what the Asian chains like 99 Ranch or Seafood City sell for and also hope to capture business from small Asian markets who buy the stuff to resell. So far from what I see sales on these products are very slow at the Grocery Outlet locations in my area. The items are nowhere near expiration. Kroger is also working with this distributor on expanding its Asian mix in many stores. Some of the Ralphs have very impressive mixes. Smiths mix not as good but better than any other grocer in the locations that have this slightly expanded mix (one store in Reno, and soon the remodel in Carson City- various in Las Vegas and even a few in Salt Lake City area). The slightly expanded mix at Smiths is about 20% the size of what some of the Ralphs have. The prices at Smiths are also about 25% lower across the board on these items. The only thing screwy about the Kroger program is they keep discontinuing then bringing back items, the same exact items. I don't quite understand it. There is one vinegar I buy that is filled with peppers and Smiths has literally added it, discontinued it, added it again, discontinued it again, and recently added it back in again.

Do you know the name of the distributor? Is it the same one used by 99 Ranch and other Asian chains?

I have been quite impressed with the Asian selection at some Ralphs stores recently, but unfortunately I haven't seen customers buying it. I feel like people of Asian descent are unlikely to buy that stuff there, and non-Asians probably aren't familiar with it. So while it's a move in the right direction, sales seem rather slow.

[storewanderer]

Grocery Outlet has found a way to source Asian products from a distributor and this is one of their initiatives to try to fill the shelves up. They sell the stuff at a slight discount 10%-20% less than what the Asian chains like 99 Ranch or Seafood City sell for and also hope to capture business from small Asian markets who buy the stuff to resell. So far from what I see sales on these products are very slow at the Grocery Outlet locations in my area. The items are nowhere near expiration. Kroger is also working with this distributor on expanding its Asian mix in many stores. Some of the Ralphs have very impressive mixes. Smiths mix not as good but better than any other grocer in the locations that have this slightly expanded mix (one store in Reno, and soon the remodel in Carson City- various in Las Vegas and even a few in Salt Lake City area). The slightly expanded mix at Smiths is about 20% the size of what some of the Ralphs have. The prices at Smiths are also about 25% lower across the board on these items. The only thing screwy about the Kroger program is they keep discontinuing then bringing back items, the same exact items. I don't quite understand it. There is one vinegar I buy that is filled with peppers and Smiths has literally added it, discontinued it, added it again, discontinued it again, and recently added it back in again.

Do you know the name of the distributor? Is it the same one used by 99 Ranch and other Asian chains?

I have been quite impressed with the Asian selection at some Ralphs stores recently, but unfortunately I haven't seen customers buying it. I feel like people of Asian descent are unlikely to buy that stuff there, and non-Asians probably aren't familiar with it. So while it's a move in the right direction, sales seem rather slow.

I'll try to find out the name of the distributor. I think 99 Ranch self distributes?

From what I am seeing some of the products are selling but it definitely isn't flying off the shelves. But even the sale of a few items is better than nothing if you have a big store and are trying to figure out what to fill it up with to make sales. The stuff has a long shelf life. One problem I see in Smiths with these items is when they go out of stock it seems to take them a while to restock (weeks). Not sure if Ralphs would have the same issue.

It is a win for Kroger if the customer who went in there for some ad items or some other reason like maybe they needed stuff after 10 PM or whatever, who typically shops, say, 99 Ranch, picks up an item or two from this expanded selection.

Ralphs mix in general seems to be improving. I was surprised by what I saw recently. Some stores are pretty dismal places but the larger stores in the more ethnic areas and the wealthier areas are quite interesting on mix. They seem to have enhanced center store mix on specialty items/hard to find items. Their bakery/deli program is pretty unappealing, they really need to work on cleaning that up and fixing quality/execution. As is typical with Kroger sometimes I'll see a store where both departments look good, but most of them look sloppy and unappealing. Beef seems to be like half case ready (you can tell by the "date" coming from a price gun on the case ready stuff and also a second label on the underside of the package) and not good looking product at all, really a bad show for Ralphs on that beef. Produce seemed fine to me, and priced well enough.

[ClownLoach]

My Asian in-laws wouldn't set foot in a Ralphs if they were giving everything away. For some reason the brand has done very poorly with the Asian community and is strongly disliked. I'm unsure as to why. I was surprised my nieces had never been to a Ralphs in their life. Albertsons has done much better and is able to maintain stores in extremely heavy Asian markets such as Westminster and Fountain Valley where Ralphs closed most or all their stores many years ago. In fact I think Ralphs has closed more stores in predominantly Asian areas than any other. Albertsons has a good reputation for consistent in stocks on those items and they do sell.

Based on the comments here I assume Ralphs is trying to mimic Albertsons expanded assortments of ethnic foods, which will be necessary if they intend to dispatch only Albertsons owned stores in California now. Albertsons has much better assortment of Hispanic foods in stores that need it. Great selection of Asian foods and also International foods in general in their larger boxes. One oddity is Kosher/Jewish food where Albertsons does poorly and I have seen the same issue mentioned above, the section will see the goods all go to clearance and discontinued only to return almost immediately.

I agree with the improved center store at Ralphs. Seeing big cuts to GM areas which are losing an aisle or two during resets, allowing expansion of more core food sections which is a good move. But the horrible execution of their perimeter cancels out the improved center store. The only credit I give Ralphs these days is that I do not see lower quality ad goods on perimeter, unlike Stater, Winco and Albertsons. Ralphs meat is the same full price or on sale, and they do tend to order or cut more when on ad so ironically their quality may be better when on sale. Albertsons and Stater both are guilty of getting lower quality meat for their ads, especially Stater who will have ungraded steaks and Albertsons who will have poor trimming intentionally leaving excess fat to weigh down the meat. Once I got a 3 lb untrimmed tri tip on a big sale at Albertsons to cook on my pellet smoker, and when I was done trimming the membranes, fatty and gristle sections off it was 20 ounces and I realized that I had now effectively paid more than if I just bought full price at Costco where it's already trimmed.

The problem with Ralphs is that they can do wonders with center store but since the perimeter sucks I will always do better just shopping Winco for stock up and then hit someone else on the way home for produce, meat etc like Trader Joe's, Costco or Sam's. Ralphs still manages to be irrelevant to me as a result despite being the only store I could walk to if I wanted to.

[storewanderer]

My Asian in-laws wouldn't set foot in a Ralphs if they were giving everything away. For some reason the brand has done very poorly with the Asian community and is strongly disliked. I'm unsure as to why. I was surprised my nieces had never been to a Ralphs in their life. Albertsons has done much better and is able to maintain stores in extremely heavy Asian markets such as Westminster and Fountain Valley where Ralphs closed most or all their stores many years ago. In fact I think Ralphs has closed more stores in predominantly Asian areas than any other. Albertsons has a good reputation for consistent in stocks on those items and they do sell.

Based on the comments here I assume Ralphs is trying to mimic Albertsons expanded assortments of ethnic foods, which will be necessary if they intend to dispatch only Albertsons owned stores in California now. Albertsons has much better assortment of Hispanic foods in stores that need it. Great selection of Asian foods and also International foods in general in their larger boxes. One oddity is Kosher/Jewish food where Albertsons does poorly and I have seen the same issue mentioned above, the section will see the goods all go to clearance and discontinued only to return almost immediately.

I agree with the improved center store at Ralphs. Seeing big cuts to GM areas which are losing an aisle or two during resets, allowing expansion of more core food sections which is a good move. But the horrible execution of their perimeter cancels out the improved center store. The only credit I give Ralphs these days is that I do not see lower quality ad goods on perimeter, unlike Stater, Winco and Albertsons. Ralphs meat is the same full price or on sale, and they do tend to order or cut more when on ad so ironically their quality may be better when on sale. Albertsons and Stater both are guilty of getting lower quality meat for their ads, especially Stater who will have ungraded steaks and Albertsons who will have poor trimming intentionally leaving excess fat to weigh down the meat. Once I got a 3 lb untrimmed tri tip on a big sale at Albertsons to cook on my pellet smoker, and when I was done trimming the membranes, fatty and gristle sections off it was 20 ounces and I realized that I had now effectively paid more than if I just bought full price at Costco where it's already trimmed.

The problem with Ralphs is that they can do wonders with center store but since the perimeter sucks I will always do better just shopping Winco for stock up and then hit someone else on the way home for produce, meat etc like Trader Joe's, Costco or Sam's. Ralphs still manages to be irrelevant to me as a result despite being the only store I could walk to if I wanted to.

On the flip side if you go up to what I call the Pasadena-Alhambra-Monterey Park box, Ralphs is still there and has two core located heavily tailored stores. They did offload a (recently remodeled) store somewhere around there to 99 Ranch some years ago around 2016 or so. Albertsons has a single store. Vons has a handfull of stores on the perimeter of the area.

I've never heard of Ralphs having an image issue with Asian customers. This is interesting to me.

The product mix of Asian items in these Ralphs with the expanded mix is 10 times the SKUs of what the heaviest merchandised Albertsons has. I think the only reason Albertsons is still open in Westminster and Fountain Valley is because they just so happened to be the last conventional left, and if you look at the customer traffic in those stores, I think there are more Hispanics shopping there than any other group.

One Ralphs which I think is fantastic with this expanded mix of Asian and various other ethnicity foods (a large full double-wide aisle) plus a Kitchen Place department is 1770 West Carson Street in Torrance. One Ralphs that is sort of NW of LGB but not in Long Beach city limits was also very large and very similar to that. Speaking of Torrance I see Ralphs has 3 stores there, but Albertsons has 0, and Vons has 2 that don't appear to be doing all that great, one a former Smiths with far more space than they can realistically use, but did get that "colorful wall white letter" repaint of their Lifestyle interiors.

The other half of those GM resets you are seeing at Ralphs is they appear to be trying to squeeze all of the "high theft" items onto a single aisle then they set up a cashier podium at that aisle and block off the back exit of that aisle and make you pay for all items in that aisle at that register. I had to pay for $1 bottle of liquid soap, the employee seemed so bored he was very happy to assist me. Looked at the receipt and it has a very low transaction number so not many transactions happened that day at that register... so this is either hurting sales or a lot of people are not paying at that podium.

No issue with produce in any of the Ralphs I went into. Full departments and a good mix of ripe/not ripe where I needed it. Pricing was much lower on produce there than Albertsons/Vons who had terrible pricing and so so looking departments.

I think both of these chains are somewhat inconsistent by "area" of SoCal also. There are areas where Ralphs is noticeably worse than other areas. Around Los Angeles seems to be where Ralphs puts on its best. Albertsons/Vons seems to do better in perimeter areas.

[veteran+]

Yeah, I never heard or witnessed that about Ralphs.

The 2 Ralphs in the Koreatown area are quite busy. I noticed many Asian folks at the Westwood Fresh Fare as well.

Come to think about it, the Fresh Fare by UCSD was usually packed with (I think) mostly Chinese students shopping.