Kroger QFC Division Has New President

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Kroger QFC Division Has New President

Post by SamSpade »

I guess the woman that was proposing that people called it "the Q" has moved on?
The gentleman hired has 35 years in Albertsons C-Suites.
Behind paywall: Kroger names longtime Albertsons executive as QFC president

QFC is down to 59 stores.
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Re: Kroger QFC Division Has New President

Post by storewanderer »

SamSpade wrote: June 24th, 2022, 4:41 pm I guess the woman that was proposing that people called it "the Q" has moved on?
The gentleman hired has 35 years in Albertsons C-Suites.
Behind paywall: Kroger names longtime Albertsons executive as QFC president

QFC is down to 59 stores.
The person who was behind making public the internal Kroger term for the division The Q left a while ago. That person briefly run PCC Markets of Choice but left there in 2021 too. That person is now running their own firm.

Glad it is no longer call the Q. What a degrading thing to call what was an upscale store.
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Re: Kroger QFC Division Has New President

Post by Super S »

As time passes, I get the feeling that QFC will either fade away, or at some point will end up being rebranded into some kind of Fred Meyer variant. QFC really doesn't have much reach outside of the Seattle area except for the few stores scattered around the Portland area.

But then again, in the Seattle market, Albertsons co-exists with Safeway and Haggen, Rite Aid co-exists with Bartell, so who knows.
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Re: Kroger QFC Division Has New President

Post by storewanderer »

Super S wrote: June 28th, 2022, 11:16 am As time passes, I get the feeling that QFC will either fade away, or at some point will end up being rebranded into some kind of Fred Meyer variant. QFC really doesn't have much reach outside of the Seattle area except for the few stores scattered around the Portland area.

But then again, in the Seattle market, Albertsons co-exists with Safeway and Haggen, Rite Aid co-exists with Bartell, so who knows.
QFC needs to be re-tooled into an upscale format again. Back in 2010 they had it moving along pretty well and it had noticeably higher quality perishables and presentation than a standard Kroger operation. Prices were also much higher.

Now QFC seems to have Kroger-level quality and that is not really a compliment (I think their quality is worse than Fred Meyer in fresh departments... supposedly the same stuff, but there is less turnover in the QFC Stores and that impacts quality) and has even higher prices than before. Center store mix is more private label heavy than before which is fine to me but I am not sure it is fine to the typical QFC shopper, and those private labels are way overpriced.

This is the same reason that Main & Vine Store that QFC was in charge of failed in Gig Harbor. Had Main & Vine had better perishables, I think it would have been successful.

Kroger really needs to work on its perishables badly. They are so hit and miss. What is the point of investing labor into these departments to prepare, stock, ultimately mark down, then shrink out once expired, crap perishables that nobody buys? You may as well just stop... pointless exercise.
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Re: Kroger QFC Division Has New President

Post by babs »

storewanderer wrote: June 28th, 2022, 11:50 am
Super S wrote: June 28th, 2022, 11:16 am As time passes, I get the feeling that QFC will either fade away, or at some point will end up being rebranded into some kind of Fred Meyer variant. QFC really doesn't have much reach outside of the Seattle area except for the few stores scattered around the Portland area.

But then again, in the Seattle market, Albertsons co-exists with Safeway and Haggen, Rite Aid co-exists with Bartell, so who knows.
QFC needs to be re-tooled into an upscale format again. Back in 2010 they had it moving along pretty well and it had noticeably higher quality perishables and presentation than a standard Kroger operation. Prices were also much higher.

Now QFC seems to have Kroger-level quality and that is not really a compliment (I think their quality is worse than Fred Meyer in fresh departments... supposedly the same stuff, but there is less turnover in the QFC Stores and that impacts quality) and has even higher prices than before. Center store mix is more private label heavy than before which is fine to me but I am not sure it is fine to the typical QFC shopper, and those private labels are way overpriced.

This is the same reason that Main & Vine Store that QFC was in charge of failed in Gig Harbor. Had Main & Vine had better perishables, I think it would have been successful.

Kroger really needs to work on its perishables badly. They are so hit and miss. What is the point of investing labor into these departments to prepare, stock, ultimately mark down, then shrink out once expired, crap perishables that nobody buys? You may as well just stop... pointless exercise.
QFC is already mostly run by either Fred Meyer or Kroger in Cincinnati depending on the function. All QFC has left are some buyers to localize the assortment. I'm not really sure how much authority a division president really has beyond a "don't screw this up" mentality. I don't see QFC going away. They have strong locations in the Seattle market that gives them significant market share. I think it will continue to function as a standard Kroger grocery store and I'm going to guess Kroger is probably OK with that.
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Re: Kroger QFC Division Has New President

Post by storewanderer »

babs wrote: June 28th, 2022, 12:22 pm

QFC is already mostly run by either Fred Meyer or Kroger in Cincinnati depending on the function. All QFC has left are some buyers to localize the assortment. I'm not really sure how much authority a division president really has beyond a "don't screw this up" mentality. I don't see QFC going away. They have strong locations in the Seattle market that gives them significant market share. I think it will continue to function as a standard Kroger grocery store and I'm going to guess Kroger is probably OK with that.
At this point, I think you are right. One of the objectives when Kroger started making all of the divisions the same 5 years ago or whenever it was, was to be able to transfer people more easily between divisions. I guess some of these divisions were so far flung/different that someone who did a great job at one division completely screwed up at a different division due to not understanding how that new division "ticked." So the solution was to just make them all the same.

Is there room for QFC as a "standard grocery store" in Seattle long term? I think QFC did well with its upscale bend, now I am not so sure how they are doing (around Portland, they are a complete joke). I think if someone is looking for "standard grocery store" in Seattle, Safeway unfortunately fits the bill a bit better with larger stores, better pricing, and a more complete product mix (due to having larger stores). I can't believe I just said that, but I did.

There are a lot of other competitors in Seattle who bend upscale who are constantly expanding. Ultimately QFC will have to make some changes but I am not sure those changes will work in small stores like they have. QFC should have instead defended itself against the rapidly expanding upscale competitors, and I think they did a good job over the years, it is just the past few years where Kroger has taken much of the unique fresh department mix away that they have lost what was an edge.

I do wonder if they could do a Mariano's like format at QFC (would need to have completely different products/merchandise but same general format).
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Re: Kroger QFC Division Has New President

Post by marshd1000 »

storewanderer wrote: June 28th, 2022, 8:03 pm
babs wrote: June 28th, 2022, 12:22 pm

QFC is already mostly run by either Fred Meyer or Kroger in Cincinnati depending on the function. All QFC has left are some buyers to localize the assortment. I'm not really sure how much authority a division president really has beyond a "don't screw this up" mentality. I don't see QFC going away. They have strong locations in the Seattle market that gives them significant market share. I think it will continue to function as a standard Kroger grocery store and I'm going to guess Kroger is probably OK with that.
At this point, I think you are right. One of the objectives when Kroger started making all of the divisions the same 5 years ago or whenever it was, was to be able to transfer people more easily between divisions. I guess some of these divisions were so far flung/different that someone who did a great job at one division completely screwed up at a different division due to not understanding how that new division "ticked." So the solution was to just make them all the same.

Is there room for QFC as a "standard grocery store" in Seattle long term? I think QFC did well with its upscale bend, now I am not so sure how they are doing (around Portland, they are a complete joke). I think if someone is looking for "standard grocery store" in Seattle, Safeway unfortunately fits the bill a bit better with larger stores, better pricing, and a more complete product mix (due to having larger stores). I can't believe I just said that, but I did.

There are a lot of other competitors in Seattle who bend upscale who are constantly expanding. Ultimately QFC will have to make some changes but I am not sure those changes will work in small stores like they have. QFC should have instead defended itself against the rapidly expanding upscale competitors, and I think they did a good job over the years, it is just the past few years where Kroger has taken much of the unique fresh department mix away that they have lost what was an edge.

I do wonder if they could do a Mariano's like format at QFC (would need to have completely different products/merchandise but same general format).
I do notice that QFC does not participate in the “Fresh For Everyone” tagline that most Kroger divisions use. I do think that there are still some standout QFC stores in terms of presentation and that would the the University Village flagship store, Downtown Bellevue, where the QFC division is housed and the Kirkland Urban location. Outside of those stores, QFC doesn’t seem that special anymore. I feel that Haggen , even under Albertsons ownership, seems more upscale than most QFC’s! But if they can be like Mariano’s or Harris Teeter, that would be awesome! As for Portland/Vancouver, I’m surprised QFC still exists. I know their presence in Portland is from the era when QFC was independent but at the end of that era. I think that they could have had a chance of more stores there had they kept their independence! I’m guessing the PDX locations are profitable otherwise they would be closed. But knowing that Fred Meyer has had some QFC-like stores in the area makes me think that the QFC’s in Portland could easily become slightly upscale non general merchandise Fred Meyer stores. As for Seattle, I think there would be howling if QFC were totally eliminated! But I’m wondering if they could end up sharing an ad like Safeway and Albertsons?
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Re: Kroger QFC Division Has New President

Post by storewanderer »

QFC should be a Mariano's-patterned format with a Pacific Northwest focus. Before Mariano's, QFC was basically the top of the line Kroger division for fresh departments and they ran other divisions to QFC to train them on fresh departments. Then Kroger corporate decided to try and run all the fresh departments from Ohio not using QFC or Mariano's practices (but still trying to mimic some of them- very poorly) and we see how that has gone. In my opinion, it has gone terrible; Kroger's fresh departments were getting better and better until they centralized everything with Ohio. Since then it has been an awful story of bad programs, inconsistency, and a complete and total lack of innovation.
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Re: Kroger QFC Division Has New President

Post by SamSpade »

I know this is "old" news now but I found a site (archive.today) that tends to get behind paywalls.
Link to Archive URL if anyone wishes to read:
https://archive.ph/7MnUC
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