Retail Watchers

There is no sign of a milk label change at Smiths... what are the labels changing to at Fred Meyer? Milk is the LAST private label item left that actually says Smiths. Eggs went to Kroger label last year and bread to Kroger label this year. What about water? Ralph's has a hodgepodge of Ralph's and ...

Regarding the items you commented on: lighter cupcakes with whipped frosting Lousy thaw and sell product from Smiths frozen plant I suspect, same trash Smiths sold pre-Kroger , introduction of legacy Kroger cakes like the “sognature” Carmel Oddly that cake hasn't been seen at Smiths much so I guess...

The legacy Ralph’s/VDK bakery products survived until the early 2010s, so relatively recently. Various Kroger divisions maintained their own baked goods, with minimal convergence... IDK if this is still true, but Ralph’s definitely has the legacy Midwestern product - maybe Kroger closed local manufa...

I think those flavored Kroger donuts came from the Columbus Bakery that they closed a few months ago... I wonder if they transferred that to another plant or just went to a third party vendor. The VDK Bakery made its own donuts... I wonder if they were a common formula to the other Kroger ones or d...

It’s official. I noticed this afternoon that all the Van de Kamp’s-branded doughnuts are now Kroger-branded, in the familiar blue boxes the rest of the chain uses. I’m not certain when the change was made, but they were definitely using the Van de Kamp’s brand as recently as earlier in the month. It...

That Farmer Jack purchase was always a head-scratcher for me. Kroger selectively chose which FJ stores to purchase, so it's not like they were stuck with it. It's obvious it's closing because the lease is finally up, but not obvious at all why they took over the lease to begin with, unless it was t...

For the past twelve years, Kroger has operated a pair of supermarkets directly across the highway from each other in Dearborn, MI. The location they're closing is the older of the two and was acquired in 2007 from Farmer Jack. It's really not surprising -- the store they're retaining opened up circa...

The Albertsons in Lake Forest has a huge sign on the door, providing notice of a public hearing on the proposed change in ownership. I ponder if this is park of the package of stores Albertsons agreed to sell last year, or if it continues to sell off its real estate (hello, Sears). Would be a shame ...

Another mistake. How much did it really cost them to have some bags with VDK labels shipped to that Kroger-owned bakery plant that makes these breads? Also that Catalina Coupon message is not really telling the full story as the wide pan wheat and variety (country white, buttermilk, etc.) breads ar...

A couple years ago, the Detroit Free Press investigated Fresh Thyme’s background and concluded it is a wholly owned subsidiary of Meijer (Meijer wouldn’t comment on the article, but has previously acknowledged it’s a major shareholder in Fresh Thyme). My guess is that they copied off of Sprouts thin...