Ralphs Apparently Dropping Van de Kamp's Bakery Brand Name

[storewanderer]

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 manufacturing facilities and trucks them in, I really don’t know.

The VDK doughnut change was minimal. These are generic, highly processed mass doughnuts indifferent from Tasty Kakes, Hostess, Entenmann's, etc. The VDK change stood out to me, however, because Kroger’s chocolate doughnuts always had an aftertaste that VDK didn’t have - until the 2010s. It’s that wicked aftertaste that makes me personally avoid them. Not that any of these are my product of choice, but you can typically grab a few boxes for cheap (50c or so) on the clearance racks, and they’re crowd pleasers at work.

At least with Ralph’s, the other changes to the Midwestern product are much more noticeable: lighter cupcakes with whipped frosting , introduction of legacy Kroger cakes like the “sognature” Carmel, Kroger’s longtime carrot cake recipes (horrible IMO), harder cookies, legacy Kroger doughnuts and muffins, etc. And All of the legacy premium Ralph’s cakes have been discontinued, replaced with frozen ones made by Kroger (and premium vendors like Cheesecake Factory).

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 it must be from a Kroger plant, Kroger’s longtime carrot cake recipes (horrible IMO)That carrot cake is actually a Rich brand carrot cake and it is the same stock carrot cake that many retailers sell, harder cookies Same garbage cookies Smiths sold in the 90's made by Smiths frozen dough plant, cannot believe those became the standard cookie for Kroger; if you can find them the PS Cookies are much better, also Frys has some better cookies as well in small size packs,
legacy Kroger doughnuts Not sure where the donuts come from but they're terribleand muffins Another winning product from Smiths frozen dough plant and despite efforts to "glaze" the muffins or otherwise doctor them up, they are still terrible; at Fred Meyer they have some different muffins in big 12 packs made at the FM Bakery plant, etc

King Soopers has managed to keep a good amount of its own bakery product. They (and Harris Teeter) are also the only two Kroger divisions to actually sell fried donuts in their bakery (not the bakeoff/frozen stuff). However I think King Soopers donuts may not be fried in each store but rather fried at the central King Soopers bakery plant then brought to the stores each morning. I'm not sure how the rural stores handle that but that seems to be what happens in Denver.

Back when Ralphs was in NorCal it had a pretty good bakery, I thought. But they never got much traction on bakery. Many of the items they offered, the same supplier items are now at Sprouts. Even back then in the 00's Smiths bakery was terrible quality. It hasn't changed much since a lot of Smiths frozen bakery stuff has actually become Kroger standard. Some of the PS items they have added today (cookies, small pies, large pies, frozen cream pies) are very good though.

It appears the classic King Soopers "Sooperb" white bread has gotten the ax in the past few years as well. Too bad.

Also Fred Meyer has continued to offer this product, which has a "story" on the package; it was a bread developed by Fred Meyer himself:
https://www.kroger.com/p/vita-bee-white ... 1111002206#

[SamSpade]

Fred Meyer is transitioning the white boxed donuts (again like earlier poster mentioned, think Franz, Entemanns, Hostess) to a blue Kroger box.
The Milk is transitioning off Fred Meyer and Mountain Dairy labels. Several ad pieces on dairy case trying to tell the story of local dairy farmers and plant.

Just bought terrible "2 bite" brownies from bakery racks for $5.99. I remember now why these stopped being bought by me when they went from windowed twist tie bags to the current plastic clamshell.

[storewanderer]

Fred Meyer is transitioning the white boxed donuts (again like earlier poster mentioned, think Franz, Entemanns, Hostess) to a blue Kroger box.
The Milk is transitioning off Fred Meyer and Mountain Dairy labels. Several ad pieces on dairy case trying to tell the story of local dairy farmers and plant.

Just bought terrible "2 bite" brownies from bakery racks for $5.99. I remember now why these stopped being bought by me when they went from windowed twist tie bags to the current plastic clamshell.

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.

The windowed twist tie bags of two bite brownies were Private Selection and they were a Product of Canada. I wonder what happened to those, those were actually really really good...

Have had the plastic clamshell two bite brownies from I believe it was Safeway (producer was someone in California, did not have a store label) and they were terrible. I would definitely not expect the ones sold by Kroger to be any better.

[CalItalian]

Over the last few days, in all the Ralphs store locations I have been in, their bulk donuts have been awful. The chocolate donuts have most of the chocolate melted off them in the display case. I've noticed this in Westwood Village Fresh Fare (their top store), Culver City Fresh Fare, Redondo Beach, Torrance, Long Beach Traffic Circle and Murrieta. I can't believe they are even trying to sell this stuff. The weather has been extra cool in SoCal this May so that's not the problem.

[Bagels]

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 it must be from a Kroger plant, Kroger’s longtime carrot cake recipes (horrible IMO)That carrot cake is actually a Rich brand carrot cake and it is the same stock carrot cake that many retailers sell, harder cookies Same garbage cookies Smiths sold in the 90's made by Smiths frozen dough plant, cannot believe those became the standard cookie for Kroger; if you can find them the PS Cookies are much better, also Frys has some better cookies as well in small size packs,
legacy Kroger doughnuts Not sure where the donuts come from but they're terribleand muffins Another winning product from Smiths frozen dough plant and despite efforts to "glaze" the muffins or otherwise doctor them up, they are still terrible; at Fred Meyer they have some different muffins in big 12 packs made at the FM Bakery plant, etc

King Soopers has managed to keep a good amount of its own bakery product. They (and Harris Teeter) are also the only two Kroger divisions to actually sell fried donuts in their bakery (not the bakeoff/frozen stuff). However I think King Soopers donuts may not be fried in each store but rather fried at the central King Soopers bakery plant then brought to the stores each morning. I'm not sure how the rural stores handle that but that seems to be what happens in Denver.

Back when Ralphs was in NorCal it had a pretty good bakery, I thought. But they never got much traction on bakery. Many of the items they offered, the same supplier items are now at Sprouts. Even back then in the 00's Smiths bakery was terrible quality. It hasn't changed much since a lot of Smiths frozen bakery stuff has actually become Kroger standard. Some of the PS items they have added today (cookies, small pies, large pies, frozen cream pies) are very good though.

It appears the classic King Soopers "Sooperb" white bread has gotten the ax in the past few years as well. Too bad.

Also Fred Meyer has continued to offer this product, which has a "story" on the package; it was a bread developed by Fred Meyer himself:
https://www.kroger.com/p/vita-bee-white ... 1111002206#

I'm starting to think that the Ralph's division receives its bakery stock from somewhere in the Midwest.

Here's the caramel cake I was referring to, one of the last remnants of Kroger's signature cake lineup of the 1990s:
https://s3-media3.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto ... LnUA/o.jpg (slice)
http://www.sewafineseam.com/wp-content/ ... 24x678.jpg (whole)

And here's what Ralph's carrot cake slices use to look like (pic isn't necessarily from Ralph's):
https://images.baklol.com/42f18c08e2910 ... 553158.jpg

Now they're using the legacy Kroger recipe, which is spicy and uses a lighter frosting (you know, so it's only 980 calories instead of 1170). Garbage IMO.

It's a shame. Legacy Ralph's products weren't the best, but they were certainly better than legacy Kroger.

[Bagels]

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 Kroger-branded water, even in the same category (e.g. 24-packs have mixed labels). Kinda ironic, since it's likely they come from the same Niagara Water plant in AZ.

Over the last few days, in all the Ralphs store locations I have been in, their bulk donuts have been awful. The chocolate donuts have most of the chocolate melted off them in the display case. I've noticed this in Westwood Village Fresh Fare (their top store), Culver City Fresh Fare, Redondo Beach, Torrance, Long Beach Traffic Circle and Murrieta. I can't believe they are even trying to sell this stuff. The weather has been extra cool in SoCal this May so that's not the problem.

Kroger's doughnuts have long struck me as being overly sticky and totally stale (even when fresh). Must have something to do with the delivery process, weather aside.

[storewanderer]

That carrot cake slice in the photo is identical to what Smiths sells to date (that is the Rich product). But they price recently went up to 2.50 a month or two ago from the longtime 1.99 price. Smiths also seems to have a different (more extensive- typically 12-18 flavors) bagel program than most of Kroger has. The bagels are pretty good within about 2 hours of being baked, after that, pretty rubbery. Same bagels Smiths has had for years, pre-Kroger even.

I don't remember when Smiths had its own bottled water. It has been Kroger bottled water for many, many years... more than a decade now. The gallons were Mountain Dairy for quite a while but more recently those too switched to Kroger label.

[submariner]

What about water? Ralph's has a hodgepodge of Ralph's and Kroger-branded water, even in the same category (e.g. 24-packs have mixed labels). Kinda ironic, since it's likely they come from the same Niagara Water plant in AZ.

I don't think that's uncommon, I've noticed Ralphs of course carries Ralphs-branded dairy and water; but Food4Less carries Kroger-branded dairy and water. Since they come from the same DCs, I am not surprised when I see bleed-over like that.

[storewanderer]

Back when there were more Ralphs brand items, it wasn't uncommon to see Ralphs brand items in F4L/FoodsCo either. Now given how few Ralphs brand items remain, that does not seem to be as common.

From an efficiency standpoint where they are running multiple banners from the same distribution center, it makes sense to just carry one private label for all banners and be done with it. Ralphs/F4L went to a lot more Kroger label product years ago, than, say, Fred Meyer who kept a good number of items in its own label for a number of years longer.

Given what has happened to Ralphs (tons of store closures, general underperforming position compared to other Kroger banners with few stores offering online ordering, no Marketplace stores, and few with fuel stations) I can see how they may not be able to justify having it have its own private label. Back when Ralphs was a 300+ store chain when Kroger bought it, it made a lot more sense to operate that like a legitimate chain with its own private label and a lot of its own programs. It was the highest store count banner by far next to the Kroger banner. Now that it has been run so far down, I can see how a lot of that doesn't make sense anymore. Add to that the standard grocery private labels do not seem as popular in California as they are in the rest of the country and that Ralphs in particular does not have very good transaction velocity compared to the rest of Kroger due to its pricing, smaller store sizes, and its markets and it becomes very evident that putting everything there to the Kroger label is the right move.

[klkla]

Given what has happened to Ralphs (tons of store closures, general underperforming position compared to other Kroger banners with few stores offering online ordering, no Marketplace stores, and few with fuel stations) I can see how they may not be able to justify having it have its own private label.

I'm not disagreeing about your general argument that Ralphs doesn't need to have it's own brand names but I think the remaining Ralphs stores are probably among the highest performing in the company, especially the core stores in metro L.A. that often do twice the volume of competing Vons and Albertson's stores.

I'm pretty sure that most, if not all Ralphs offer online ordering: https://delivery.ralphs.com/

The Marketplace stores wouldn't make sense in SoCal because of the price of real estate.

Back when Ralphs was a 300+ store chain

They became a 300 store chain after buying a lot of mediocre locations through acquisitions. Focusing on their core locations and closing the mediocre stores as their leases expire makes sense.

Ralphs in particular does not have very good transaction velocity compared to the rest of Kroger due to its pricing, smaller store sizes, and its markets and it becomes very evident that putting everything there to the Kroger label is the right move.

Ralphs has excellent transaction velocity despite it's pricing and a lot of those smaller locations are in areas where barriers to entry will keep competition from ever becoming a problem. Their remaining stores are in either very wealthy markets or very densely populated markets.