Kroger "big announcement coming" on branding

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Re: Kroger "big announcement coming" on branding

Post by veteran+ »

I don't think that would be the case with King Soopers!

There would be a serious and deleterious effect in rebranding.

Something is just not right with Kroger recently (10 years or more?).

Even the Fred Meyer things is strange.

I remember getting general merchandise from the Fred Meyers D.C. that was very high quality stuff at pretty good prices. Stylish and well built (I still have some at home). Back then, better than anything at Walmart (for sure), Kmart and even Target.

There is a strange misdirection in many areas that befuddles me.
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Re: Kroger "big announcement coming" on branding

Post by storewanderer »

veteran+ wrote: September 28th, 2020, 7:28 am I don't think that would be the case with King Soopers!

There would be a serious and deleterious effect in rebranding.

Something is just not right with Kroger recently (10 years or more?).

Even the Fred Meyer things is strange.

I remember getting general merchandise from the Fred Meyers D.C. that was very high quality stuff at pretty good prices. Stylish and well built (I still have some at home). Back then, better than anything at Walmart (for sure), Kmart and even Target.

There is a strange misdirection in many areas that befuddles me.
After what Kroger did to the divisions a few years ago I think it would still go okay at King Soopers. Tough to beat a dead horse and Kroger at this point has assimilated the little divisions very heavily. Actually in all of the Kroger divisions I've been to the past 5 years, King Soopers Stores seem run the worst and are in the worst condition (lots of stores need remodels). Ralphs is a very close second with lousy attitudes and sloppy operations. In the early 00's that was flipped and King Soopers and Ralphs would have had some of the best run stores. The attitude is terrible, stores are sloppy, and it is clear Kroger's efforts to assimilate these higher quality divisions have not been good for morale. Conversely the "old average" divisions like the Frys, Dillons, Smiths, Kroger banners all seem to be okay with slight upgrades made to certain stores. Kroger is really good at "old average." That is what they do best. And in many cases "old average" actually excels when given new better things to work with like larger stores or new 100% USDA Choice Beef or Boar's Head deli they get excited about it and execute the upgrades well. But when you take what was a higher quality operation and downgrade it, people do not have a positive reaction.

Ralphs in the early 00's had a very well tailored Home GM selection from Fred Meyer well presented. That was a key feature of their new stores and some of the remodels in NorCal and it really added something to the stores. That was a smaller version of what was used in those AZ Marketplace Stores but it was all Fred Meyer stuff. Somewhere along the way Kroger seemed to lose its way on the Home GM and stopped having stylish items and was just getting the wrong items.

What was funny was Smiths in the early 00's did not get any of that neat home stuff but it got other stuff from Fred Meyer- like some toys, limited sporting goods (bike tubes and such), a lot more "Rubbermaid" products, a larger aisle with expanded for a grocery store hardware and stuff like that, etc. No neat presentation but it was there. Kroger has gotten away from that in a lot of stores but some stuff have it.
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Re: Kroger "big announcement coming" on branding

Post by veteran+ »

I worked at King Soopers during those cooperation days between Ralphs and King Soopers.

It was an amazing exchange with 2 outstanding operators (best practices, out of the box thinking, etc.).

Has King Soopers really deteriorated that bad? I would never think that possible. The BRAND was as powerful as Publix for so long! Safeway could never do anything to change that back then.

What happened?

Is City Markets in the same condition?
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Re: Kroger "big announcement coming" on branding

Post by jamcool »

City Market is a traditional grocery store, similar to Safeway. And when you go into a Fry’s, you know it is a Kroger all but in name, even the handful of Fry’s branded items have the Kroger address.
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Re: Kroger "big announcement coming" on branding

Post by storewanderer »

veteran+ wrote: September 29th, 2020, 7:24 am I worked at King Soopers during those cooperation days between Ralphs and King Soopers.

It was an amazing exchange with 2 outstanding operators (best practices, out of the box thinking, etc.).

Has King Soopers really deteriorated that bad? I would never think that possible. The BRAND was as powerful as Publix for so long! Safeway could never do anything to change that back then.

What happened?

Is City Markets in the same condition?
King Soopers is still very strongly regarded by customers out of habit and due to competitive pricing, but there isn't much (more than there is at Smiths or Kroger or Frys) to get excited about there at King Soopers anymore.

King Soopers still runs circles around Safeway in Denver though... that hasn't changed.

Even the Sooper Bread is gone as of a couple years ago, it was thrown to the same place as "Van De Kamps."
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Re: Kroger "big announcement coming" on branding

Post by arizonaguy »

jamcool wrote: September 29th, 2020, 7:56 am City Market is a traditional grocery store, similar to Safeway. And when you go into a Fry’s, you know it is a Kroger all but in name, even the handful of Fry’s branded items have the Kroger address.
I think Kroger missed a golden opportunity in 1999 to simply rebrand the Arizona stores to the Kroger name. They re-bannered about 40% of their stores (from Smith's and Fred Meyer Marketplace to Fry's) that year anyways so they could've simply rebannered everything and I doubt it would've affected much.
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Re: Kroger "big announcement coming" on branding

Post by storewanderer »

arizonaguy wrote: September 30th, 2020, 9:08 am
jamcool wrote: September 29th, 2020, 7:56 am City Market is a traditional grocery store, similar to Safeway. And when you go into a Fry’s, you know it is a Kroger all but in name, even the handful of Fry’s branded items have the Kroger address.
I think Kroger missed a golden opportunity in 1999 to simply rebrand the Arizona stores to the Kroger name. They re-bannered about 40% of their stores (from Smith's and Fred Meyer Marketplace to Fry's) that year anyways so they could've simply rebannered everything and I doubt it would've affected much.
Did Frys have any Kroger brand product in the 90's even? I thought they ran Food Club on a lot of private label items (maybe that was King Soopers) and had Kroger only on a very limited number of items if any items. I feel like Kroger is much better known to the Frys customer today than it was back in the 90's.
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Re: Kroger "big announcement coming" on branding

Post by veteran+ »

I thought it was Topco.

:-)
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Re: Kroger "big announcement coming" on branding

Post by storewanderer »

veteran+ wrote: October 1st, 2020, 6:46 am I thought it was Topco.

:-)
Food Club is a stock Topco brand. Along with a few others. With Harris Teeter Kroger is back to doing Topco brand procurement again as H-T brand is still Topco.
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Re: Kroger "big announcement coming" on branding

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

storewanderer wrote: September 30th, 2020, 8:41 pm Did Frys have any Kroger brand product in the 90's even? I thought they ran Food Club on a lot of private label items (maybe that was King Soopers) and had Kroger only on a very limited number of items if any items. I feel like Kroger is much better known to the Frys customer today than it was back in the 90's.
King Soopers, City Market, and Fry's were owned by Dillons. These chains all used Topco products before Kroger bought Dillons in 1983. Fry's might've used Topco brands until 2000 or so. Around that time, Bashas switched to Topco from Federated Foods (Hy-Top brand).
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