2023 - Roth's Fresh Markets trying TV ads

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Re: 2023 - Roth's Fresh Markets trying TV ads

Post by babs »

storewanderer wrote: January 15th, 2023, 5:16 pm
babs wrote: January 15th, 2023, 6:12 am
This is a stretch. This is probably nothing more than a clueless exec thinking they needed to run a TV play. If they were really interested in a marketwide branding play, they would either rebrand their Chucks Produce stores in Vancouver or dual brand the ads.
Chucks doesn't have a full grocery assortment though and no real drug assortment at all, since they aren't a full line conventional grocer. So it would be difficult to tie Roth's and Chucks together for marketing purposes. Also completely different perimeter programs between the two.

Waste of money but must be hopeful they need to spread awareness of their name in case some divests come available for them.

I wouldn't use the Roth's name on divests either. I'd probably bring that Save-On Foods name down from Canada and use it. But it is probably all a moot point as the likelihood of this merger going through appears low and the likelihood of this group buying divests is also questionable.
I guess you haven't been to a Chuck's produce lately. It's more than a produce market, it's a grocery store and I noticed the last time I was there that they are diversify the grocery mix away a bit from the high end gourmet to something more mid market. The deli sure looks a lot like Roth's now. Gradually these Chuck's stores are becoming a Roth's, why wouldn't they?
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Re: 2023 - Roth's Fresh Markets trying TV ads

Post by storewanderer »

babs wrote: January 15th, 2023, 7:21 pm
I guess you haven't been to a Chuck's produce lately. It's more than a produce market, it's a grocery store and I noticed the last time I was there that they are diversify the grocery mix away a bit from the high end gourmet to something more mid market. The deli sure looks a lot like Roth's now. Gradually these Chuck's stores are becoming a Roth's, why wouldn't they?
I haven't been into one since they were purchased... and really I was somewhat confused what they were. At points I thought they were trying to be like a Sprouts, other parts of the store I felt like they were trying to be a gourmet operation. Whatever they were trying to be, the store was very busy and well staffed, so it seemed to be working. If they turn them into something like Roth's, I expect customer counts to fall like a rock. Maybe if they can address the major pricing issues Roth's has, it could work.
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Re: 2023 - Roth's Fresh Markets trying TV ads

Post by marshd1000 »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: January 14th, 2023, 12:54 pm
storewanderer wrote: January 14th, 2023, 12:28 pm Roth's must think they will get divested stores out of Safeway/Kroger.

This will be a bigger bomb than Haggen was. Roth's has lower quality products than Haggen at similarly high prices (maybe even higher now). Using Supervalu/UNFI as supplier. Same old story.

There is zero synergy between Roth's Canadian owner and the US stores. They have to have a completely separate supply chain due to the labeling requirements (other than on a few brands like P&G who make the labels compliant in both US and Canada).
They'll probably get some divested Albertsons/QFC stores left in Portland.

Jim Pattison could try and bring their Western Family brand down to the US. The Canadian Western Family brand has no connection to the American Western Family brand (now phased out).

This reminds me of when Sainsbury owned Shaw's. They got no private label from Sainsbury. Shaw's used Topco as their brand supplier until Albertsons bought them in 2004.
I personally think that if Kroger put QFC and possibly Haggen into Spinco, Pattison would be a good candidate to pick them up. If you have ever been to British Columbia, you will see that they have several banners in the same market. In Vancouver they have Save-On-Foods, Price Smart, Nesters Markets and Fresh Fare. So it wouldn’t be a stretch for them to have Roth’s in the Salem area, Chuck’s in Clark County and QFC in Portland. Also QFC in Puget Sound and Haggen would fit nicely too. Pattison can operate high end to low end stores well from what I can see! As for synergies, perhaps they might have a greater buying power with the multinational brands common to the US and Canada. Granted the distribution and labeling might be different. But I am not in the retail industry at this point, so I may not really know anything! As for bringing Save-On-Foods to the US, that could happen if Kroger divests some Safeway, Albertsons and QFCs in select areas of Puget Sound and Portland, while wanting to keep using those banners. In that case, Save-On-Foods might be a good banner to introduce! I see those stores being comparable to Safeway, QFC and Albertsons!
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Re: 2023 - Roth's Fresh Markets trying TV ads

Post by storewanderer »

marshd1000 wrote: January 15th, 2023, 8:53 pm
I personally think that if Kroger put QFC and possibly Haggen into Spinco, Pattison would be a good candidate to pick them up. If you have ever been to British Columbia, you will see that they have several banners in the same market. In Vancouver they have Save-On-Foods, Price Smart, Nesters Markets and Fresh Fare. So it wouldn’t be a stretch for them to have Roth’s in the Salem area, Chuck’s in Clark County and QFC in Portland. Also QFC in Puget Sound and Haggen would fit nicely too. Pattison can operate high end to low end stores well from what I can see! As for synergies, perhaps they might have a greater buying power with the multinational brands common to the US and Canada. Granted the distribution and labeling might be different. But I am not in the retail industry at this point, so I may not really know anything! As for bringing Save-On-Foods to the US, that could happen if Kroger divests some Safeway, Albertsons and QFCs in select areas of Puget Sound and Portland, while wanting to keep using those banners. In that case, Save-On-Foods might be a good banner to introduce! I see those stores being comparable to Safeway, QFC and Albertsons!
It appears they have made some pretty major changes to Chucks based on recent reviews in Google/Yelp and the reviews recently are overwhelmingly negative. Lots of comments on staffing changes, product cuts, and price increases... I thought they bought Chucks because they liked the unique format. So much for that.

Save-On Foods would be the most logical conversion for Safeway/Albertsons units that could hang on. They will really need to do something about pricing though. QFC is probably best kept as QFC- I think QFC needs to either be divested 100% or stay with Kroger 100%.

I don't think Price Smart would perform very well around Seattle or Portland. There are too many legitimate Asian stores in the market at this point that do it all much better. Price Smart is too watered down and lacking. Also it is not priced well. Maybe they could get a few locations that don't have much Asian population but do have a little bit, that would work, and with how they run them, they can hang on with much lower volumes than the US based Asian stores like Seafood City/H-Mart need. That would work until 99 Ranch comes up to WA and starts to open 20k square foot units in areas like that which have some Asian population but not enough for a full size store (like they did in Folsom, CA), then they would be out of business as their format is just too watered down.

They could get some buys that would work in US and Canada, notably Proctor & Gamble products that have the same labels in the US and Canada. On consumable non perishable food it would be more difficult due to the labeling rules, on perishables even more complicated. The old Canada Safeway had to have all different products from the US due to those rules (ironically I think that labeling rule which enabled Canada Safeway to keep controlling its own merchandising vs. going to the streamlined California merchandising Safeway used across the US is a big part of why Canada Safeway was so successful in the 2000's and 2010's).
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Re: 2023 - Roth's Fresh Markets trying TV ads

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

storewanderer wrote: January 15th, 2023, 11:44 pm Save-On Foods would be the most logical conversion for Safeway/Albertsons units that could hang on. They will really need to do something about pricing though. QFC is probably best kept as QFC- I think QFC needs to either be divested 100% or stay with Kroger 100%.
I'd think bringing Save-on-foods to the US would result in trademark trouble with Albertsons... In fact, there are still a few Albertsons stores in the Northwest lurking around with Sav-on Pharmacy signs. They should pay Albertsons to drop the Sav-on trademark assuming that were to happen.
Assuming Roth's gets divested stores, I can imagine Jim Pattison will be in bed with Kingswood for the formation of SpinCo. Bob Miller is actually on the Jim Pattison Board of Directors.
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Re: 2023 - Roth's Fresh Markets trying TV ads

Post by storewanderer »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: January 17th, 2023, 7:16 pm
storewanderer wrote: January 15th, 2023, 11:44 pm Save-On Foods would be the most logical conversion for Safeway/Albertsons units that could hang on. They will really need to do something about pricing though. QFC is probably best kept as QFC- I think QFC needs to either be divested 100% or stay with Kroger 100%.
I'd think bringing Save-on-foods to the US would result in trademark trouble with Albertsons... In fact, there are still a few Albertsons stores in the Northwest lurking around with Sav-on Pharmacy signs. They should pay Albertsons to drop the Sav-on trademark assuming that were to happen.
Assuming Roth's gets divested stores, I can imagine Jim Pattison will be in bed with Kingswood for the formation of SpinCo. Bob Miller is actually on the Jim Pattison Board of Directors.
I suppose if they are buying divested stores they could work that out though.

Did not know Bob Miller is on the Board of Jim Pattison. That is very interesting. I think he is still a 1% owner of Safeway/Albertsons too...
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