Kroger to merge with Albertsons?

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Re: Kroger to merge with Albertsons?

Post by jamcool »

Lucky disappeared in Arizona in the late 80s, selling out to ABCO (which bought the Arizona Alpha Beta stores in the mid-80s)More than likely due to a non-compete clause with American Stores who bought Lucky.

It is a wonder why Winco hasn’t expanded more in Arizona, especially with the possible “KR-ABS” merger.
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Re: Kroger to merge with Albertsons?

Post by rwsandiego »

jamcool wrote: March 21st, 2023, 6:15 pm Lucky disappeared in Arizona in the late 80s, selling out to ABCO (which bought the Arizona Alpha Beta stores in the mid-80s)More than likely due to a non-compete clause with American Stores who bought Lucky. ...
The Arizona Republic ran several articles at the time of the ABCO/Lucky transaction. The first, on June 11, 1988 when the deal was announced, stated ASC sold the Arizona Lucky stores to pay down debt incurred when they bought Lucky Stores, Inc. The second, on June 16, 1988, stated Lucky had planned to sell the Arizona stores to ABCO before being acquired by ASC. Then, in October, an article stated that the purchase agreement allowed ABCO to use the Lucky name and sell Lady Lee products for three months after the sale was final.

It makes sense that ABCO would have rebranded the stores. It would be silly to have two sets of stores using two separate names. One of the articles mentions ABCO planned upgrades to the Lucky stores, as they required investment to bring them up to ABCO's standards.
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Re: Kroger to merge with Albertsons?

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: March 21st, 2023, 5:20 pm



I personally just don't like the F4L operation with the way they went into some of their locations in lower income communities with a captive audience. They generally didn't discount much more than a Ralphs but run a lower labor program with lower quality and of course customer bagging.

I do think that Winco does get cross shop from everyone because they have higher standards than all of the other price impact formats I've seen; I've never seen a Winco that wasn't clean, fully stocked, free from bad odors etc. so the mainstream shopper feels like they are "shopping smart" at the discounter. Winco is the "Costco" of these off price formats and I believe they take quite a bit of Center store business away from the Kroger/Albertsons stores for many miles around their locations. Since moving closer to one we shop them about once a month and stock up on basics. I don't think F4L in its current form is competitive with Winco at all and I don't think Kroger is really innovating the format these days either.
Food Maxx is not competitive with WinCo either. Food Maxx runs some specials that beat WinCo's pricing and some of their prices are competitive with WinCo but many are not. Food Maxx definitely has higher pricing than FoodsCo in NorCal (quite a bit higher). Food Maxx has been very much value engineered. It is there to push volume. They run a bakery program with very basic items made in store (quality is quite good- breads, cookies, croissants/danish same dough, and very limited cakes decorated in store from frozen sheets) and most of it thaw and sell. The only deli item they sell is hot rotisserie chicken. Everything else "deli" is vacuum packed meats that are overpriced (higher prices than Trader Joes on the same items) and it is over at the meat/lunchmeat department, not even handled by bakery.

Some Food Maxx units in the bay area but also rural NorCal do really good volumes but once a WinCo opens they are hurt significantly. Some late Wal Mart Supercenter openings in Oroville and Red Bluff definitely impacted what were two of the best performing Food Maxx units but they still do okay. They run some better pricing than Wal Mart on some items (I really don't think Wal Mart's pricing is great anymore).

Food Maxx runs with skeleton labor. The store manager is often serving as a cashier (the only cashier). There is never anyone watching self checkout (the cashier has to come over and do that). Last time I was there the store manager was working a frozen food pallet, that day he actually did have 2 employees staffed at the front end both as cashiers (running to help self checkout as needed). Basically on a given day they have 1 employee in produce, 1 employee in bakery, 1 employee in meat, 1 employee in grocery, and if you are lucky 2 employees on front end. Then a manager. Food Maxx cuts all expenses to the literal bone. Food 4 Less/FoodsCo is a much better place to shop- better pricing, more fresh offerings, way better private label program, and better looking stores.

Food Maxx is where you go because you want a better deal but don't want to deal with the crowd of WinCo or Wal Mart. No other reason to shop there.

The other thing during the past couple years of price hikes is Food Maxx tends to be very slow to price increase. Save Mart will price increase pretty quickly after Safeway and Raleys (those two seem to price increase in tandem) but at Food Maxx it will usually be a couple months before they take increases. As a result I've done a lot more shopping at Food Maxx in the past year on certain center store items they were 25-35% below market on (below WinCo also) due to not taking the price increases as quickly as everyone else.
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Re: Kroger to merge with Albertsons?

Post by HCal »

Interesting reading your observations of FoodMaxx. It seems they have a lot of regional variation, because mine are fairly well staffed, usually 2-3 lanes open (no self checkout here) and several employees on the floor. Their pricing does seem to be a bit higher than Winco, but my credit card rewards offset some of that.

Back on topic of this thread, I think Save Mart would gladly take Food4Less if offered. I bet FoodMaxx would do well in LA/SD, particularly among Hispanic communities. Save Mart's ability to operate conventional supermarkets that compete with Krobertsons, Stater Bros., and Smart & Final in SoCal is much more questionable.
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Re: Kroger to merge with Albertsons?

Post by veteran+ »

ClownLoach wrote: March 21st, 2023, 5:20 pm
storewanderer wrote: March 21st, 2023, 12:40 am
HCal wrote: March 20th, 2023, 10:28 pm

Rebranding to Save Mart will probably not go well, as the name is mostly unheard of outside the central valley, and sounds like a budget name. To someone who isn't familiar with the company, Food Maxx should be the conventional stores and Save Mart should be the discount stores.

If they need a banner for expansion, I would recommend Lucky, assuming they can get the rights. I don't think Albertsons would object, and Grocery Outlet has abandoned their claims.

But I find all this talk about national expansion of Save Mart to be rather amusing. The FTC learned a lesson from Haggen and isn't going to allow that again.
Haggen tried to go from 20 stores (and declining) to closer to 200 stores almost overnight. They got no distribution centers. No buying. Their distribution and buying operation was very small to begin with and they drew products from multiple wholesalers.

This Save Mart operation does not exactly have a tract record of success but in the past 3-5 years the company has been on an upswing with the remodel program, pricing program, and tightening things up at Food Maxx. The new ownership showed up and has done things I find odd like closing pharmacy but brought in a bunch of very qualified people who collectively have knowledge and experience across various geographies with Albertsons. Note one of the people they brought in is a logistics person. This signals to me they will be handling supplying of stores they buy, not using wholesalers like Haggen did in new territories.

Save Mart has the right to use the Lucky banner forever in its markets. But there is some kind of geography. And who made the agreement with Save Mart in the first place to even get to use the Lucky banner? That was Bob Miller when the LLC he was running sold the NorCal Albertsons division to Save Mart. Supervalu was still running a few Lucky units in SoCal at that time. The Utah rebranding of Super Saver to Lucky did not happen until after Safeway and I am not sure why that rebranding occurred. So at this point California and Nevada are wide open and the Lucky banner could be used with no confusion. I also do not see a path forward for the Utah Lucky Stores- 2 of them can probably stay and be converted to Smiths (Tooele is a former Smiths, easy conversion); 2 either need to be divested or just close.

Really if I were Save Mart I'd convert just about every Save Mart to Lucky. Maybe leave Save Mart in Modesto or Fresno but that would be about it. Despite everything I don't think Save Mart has a strong brand for itself. They are not a "cheap" store either, their name is misleading. Food Maxx runs quite a bit less labor than a F4L (yes it is possible) so it will be interesting to see how that goes.

The biggest thing here is just how many stores end up divested. If it is really only 250-300 stores, I don't know. That will be scattered random stores with various banners/sizes and a purchaser won't be able to make much of a splash buying those. If it ends up at the 650 stores then there are going to be some big things happening like entire divisions changing ownership.

I am seeing a lot of fine tuning at Food Maxx lately. Clearer promotional signage, updates to shelf tags this week, sharper marketing. I am very suspicious all of F4L may go to them. If that were to happen a banner change would not be necessary.
Interesting observations on Food Maxx; for some reason or another I am sure that they will offload the entire Food4Less/FoodsCo operation as they can spin the message that they are ensuring there is viable low cost competition. Makes perfect sense for that to go to Save Mart intact. I don't personally think the Kroger/Albertsons shopper spends much time at either of those chains, but if they were better operated that could change. I also do not think they are competitive, at least not the last couple of times I visited a Food4Less the pricing on center store was largely the same as the nearby Ralphs coupled with a lower quality perimeter of questionable freshness. It almost felt like whatever doesn't meet the Ralphs brand quality gets sent to F4L.

I personally just don't like the F4L operation with the way they went into some of their locations in lower income communities with a captive audience. They generally didn't discount much more than a Ralphs but run a lower labor program with lower quality and of course customer bagging. The bad experience I had growing up where my grandmother was on an influential neighborhood council in Long Beach that worked to get Ralphs to commit to running a full service store and rebuild a terrible former Alpha-Beta. They couldn't expand due to parking limitations and basically struck a deal with community groups to support their request for a parking waiver. They got the support, tore down and rebuilt the store as promised then downgraded it to a F4L just a few years later and let many employees go due to the reduced labor the store runs on. Although it is one of only a few F4L stores that kept some of the Ralphs type perimeter features (they kept the same size deli/bakery and service meat) so they could probably claim its a "semi full service" store. But the entire experience left a bad taste in the mouths of the local community because of the bait and switch; if they felt the economics didn't support the Ralphs format they should have been up front with the community as other choices like Northgate could have been a better match in a community with no other room for a market.

I do think that Winco does get cross shop from everyone because they have higher standards than all of the other price impact formats I've seen; I've never seen a Winco that wasn't clean, fully stocked, free from bad odors etc. so the mainstream shopper feels like they are "shopping smart" at the discounter. Winco is the "Costco" of these off price formats and I believe they take quite a bit of Center store business away from the Kroger/Albertsons stores for many miles around their locations. Since moving closer to one we shop them about once a month and stock up on basics. I don't think F4L in its current form is competitive with Winco at all and I don't think Kroger is really innovating the format these days either. If the F4L stores changed hands and had an operator who was more enthusiastic about running a price impact format they might be able to make the appropriate changes to be a competitor to Winco, which in turn will just make them more competitive and ultimately the customer will win.
But then again, they do weird things like the F4L in Mission Valley San Diego (upscale area), less than a 1/4 mile from a Ralphs Fresh Fare (a very nice one) on the same street and same side.

BTW, the F4L is exactly as you describe (gross inside and out).
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Re: Kroger to merge with Albertsons?

Post by ClownLoach »

veteran+ wrote: March 22nd, 2023, 8:15 am
ClownLoach wrote: March 21st, 2023, 5:20 pm
storewanderer wrote: March 21st, 2023, 12:40 am

Haggen tried to go from 20 stores (and declining) to closer to 200 stores almost overnight. They got no distribution centers. No buying. Their distribution and buying operation was very small to begin with and they drew products from multiple wholesalers.

This Save Mart operation does not exactly have a tract record of success but in the past 3-5 years the company has been on an upswing with the remodel program, pricing program, and tightening things up at Food Maxx. The new ownership showed up and has done things I find odd like closing pharmacy but brought in a bunch of very qualified people who collectively have knowledge and experience across various geographies with Albertsons. Note one of the people they brought in is a logistics person. This signals to me they will be handling supplying of stores they buy, not using wholesalers like Haggen did in new territories.

Save Mart has the right to use the Lucky banner forever in its markets. But there is some kind of geography. And who made the agreement with Save Mart in the first place to even get to use the Lucky banner? That was Bob Miller when the LLC he was running sold the NorCal Albertsons division to Save Mart. Supervalu was still running a few Lucky units in SoCal at that time. The Utah rebranding of Super Saver to Lucky did not happen until after Safeway and I am not sure why that rebranding occurred. So at this point California and Nevada are wide open and the Lucky banner could be used with no confusion. I also do not see a path forward for the Utah Lucky Stores- 2 of them can probably stay and be converted to Smiths (Tooele is a former Smiths, easy conversion); 2 either need to be divested or just close.

Really if I were Save Mart I'd convert just about every Save Mart to Lucky. Maybe leave Save Mart in Modesto or Fresno but that would be about it. Despite everything I don't think Save Mart has a strong brand for itself. They are not a "cheap" store either, their name is misleading. Food Maxx runs quite a bit less labor than a F4L (yes it is possible) so it will be interesting to see how that goes.

The biggest thing here is just how many stores end up divested. If it is really only 250-300 stores, I don't know. That will be scattered random stores with various banners/sizes and a purchaser won't be able to make much of a splash buying those. If it ends up at the 650 stores then there are going to be some big things happening like entire divisions changing ownership.

I am seeing a lot of fine tuning at Food Maxx lately. Clearer promotional signage, updates to shelf tags this week, sharper marketing. I am very suspicious all of F4L may go to them. If that were to happen a banner change would not be necessary.
Interesting observations on Food Maxx; for some reason or another I am sure that they will offload the entire Food4Less/FoodsCo operation as they can spin the message that they are ensuring there is viable low cost competition. Makes perfect sense for that to go to Save Mart intact. I don't personally think the Kroger/Albertsons shopper spends much time at either of those chains, but if they were better operated that could change. I also do not think they are competitive, at least not the last couple of times I visited a Food4Less the pricing on center store was largely the same as the nearby Ralphs coupled with a lower quality perimeter of questionable freshness. It almost felt like whatever doesn't meet the Ralphs brand quality gets sent to F4L.

I personally just don't like the F4L operation with the way they went into some of their locations in lower income communities with a captive audience. They generally didn't discount much more than a Ralphs but run a lower labor program with lower quality and of course customer bagging. The bad experience I had growing up where my grandmother was on an influential neighborhood council in Long Beach that worked to get Ralphs to commit to running a full service store and rebuild a terrible former Alpha-Beta. They couldn't expand due to parking limitations and basically struck a deal with community groups to support their request for a parking waiver. They got the support, tore down and rebuilt the store as promised then downgraded it to a F4L just a few years later and let many employees go due to the reduced labor the store runs on. Although it is one of only a few F4L stores that kept some of the Ralphs type perimeter features (they kept the same size deli/bakery and service meat) so they could probably claim its a "semi full service" store. But the entire experience left a bad taste in the mouths of the local community because of the bait and switch; if they felt the economics didn't support the Ralphs format they should have been up front with the community as other choices like Northgate could have been a better match in a community with no other room for a market.

I do think that Winco does get cross shop from everyone because they have higher standards than all of the other price impact formats I've seen; I've never seen a Winco that wasn't clean, fully stocked, free from bad odors etc. so the mainstream shopper feels like they are "shopping smart" at the discounter. Winco is the "Costco" of these off price formats and I believe they take quite a bit of Center store business away from the Kroger/Albertsons stores for many miles around their locations. Since moving closer to one we shop them about once a month and stock up on basics. I don't think F4L in its current form is competitive with Winco at all and I don't think Kroger is really innovating the format these days either. If the F4L stores changed hands and had an operator who was more enthusiastic about running a price impact format they might be able to make the appropriate changes to be a competitor to Winco, which in turn will just make them more competitive and ultimately the customer will win.
But then again, they do weird things like the F4L in Mission Valley San Diego (upscale area), less than a 1/4 mile from a Ralphs Fresh Fare (a very nice one) on the same street and same side.

BTW, the F4L is exactly as you describe (gross inside and out).
I think they were focused on labor slashing at all costs and tried to shove the F4L concept into whatever locations they could fit it in. Again this resulted in stupid locations like Mission Valley and the Long Beach community that they screwed over. Since then they seem to be pulling away from the concept. Pulling it from Vegas was very telling about their commitment. There is a large customer base for a price impact format there and the stores should have thrived. You can't find a parking space at the Winco stores there now and the few Walmart stores I've visited were possibly best in chain and hopping busy.
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Re: Kroger to merge with Albertsons?

Post by SamSpade »

SamSpade wrote: March 22nd, 2023, 5:30 pm
veteran+ wrote: March 21st, 2023, 8:17 am I concur with Clown!

If any of this goes through (I hope it does not because historically, all promises are lies), I believe the Lucky name is the best bet. These purported "geniuses" at Save Mart should ditch that awful name and fly with Lucky. If these chiefs are so good they can serously create strong competition (at least in California).
Plus, Lucky California's logo / branding is GORGEOUS. 8-)
Image
The brand strategy began with a recognition that multiple “Californias” exist . . . In short, Lucky California seeks to be a genuine reflection of how people eat in California, capturing the diversity of its many flavors, products and cultures. The strategy led to a wide range of inter-related recommended changes and innovations, including a new brand name, identity and store prototype, as well as internal culture tools and innovation programs. The new name, Lucky California, sets the tone for the brand’s identification with its marketplace.
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Re: Kroger to merge with Albertsons?

Post by storewanderer »

HCal wrote: March 22nd, 2023, 1:09 am Interesting reading your observations of FoodMaxx. It seems they have a lot of regional variation, because mine are fairly well staffed, usually 2-3 lanes open (no self checkout here) and several employees on the floor. Their pricing does seem to be a bit higher than Winco, but my credit card rewards offset some of that.

Back on topic of this thread, I think Save Mart would gladly take Food4Less if offered. I bet FoodMaxx would do well in LA/SD, particularly among Hispanic communities. Save Mart's ability to operate conventional supermarkets that compete with Krobertsons, Stater Bros., and Smart & Final in SoCal is much more questionable.
2-3 lanes open is not much different than the 1-2 employees on front end I see here. I assume those are busier locations. Several employees on the floor is the same as I described- 1 grocery, 1 produce, 1 meat, 1 bakery (that one usually isn't on the floor), and a manager.

I've spent significantly more at Food Maxx in the past year than I've spent at WinCo thanks to their "slow to increase" prices. Won't touch meat at Food Maxx though- very bad. Hispanic customers shop Food Maxx but don't seem to buy much, it seems to be their convenience store in Sparks/Carson City. Meat seems to be a very weak link. There will be a 30%+ volume drop in any F4L store converted to Food Maxx.
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Re: Kroger to merge with Albertsons?

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: March 22nd, 2023, 11:14 pm
HCal wrote: March 22nd, 2023, 1:09 am Interesting reading your observations of FoodMaxx. It seems they have a lot of regional variation, because mine are fairly well staffed, usually 2-3 lanes open (no self checkout here) and several employees on the floor. Their pricing does seem to be a bit higher than Winco, but my credit card rewards offset some of that.

Back on topic of this thread, I think Save Mart would gladly take Food4Less if offered. I bet FoodMaxx would do well in LA/SD, particularly among Hispanic communities. Save Mart's ability to operate conventional supermarkets that compete with Krobertsons, Stater Bros., and Smart & Final in SoCal is much more questionable.
2-3 lanes open is not much different than the 1-2 employees on front end I see here. I assume those are busier locations. Several employees on the floor is the same as I described- 1 grocery, 1 produce, 1 meat, 1 bakery (that one usually isn't on the floor), and a manager.

I've spent significantly more at Food Maxx in the past year than I've spent at WinCo thanks to their "slow to increase" prices. Won't touch meat at Food Maxx though- very bad. Hispanic customers shop Food Maxx but don't seem to buy much, it seems to be their convenience store in Sparks/Carson City. Meat seems to be a very weak link. There will be a 30%+ volume drop in any F4L store converted to Food Maxx.
Meat isn't any good at F4L or Winco. None of these price impact formats seem to be good with it. I don't see any reason why Kroger wouldn't sell off these price impact format stores (F4L/FoodsCo) in their entirety, being the only true "division sold off" and include all of the operations with it. Again it seems based on all of the outside indications Save Mart is trying to acquire assets to grow and this would be a good one to just merge in and figure out how to construct the best of both. I'm sure there are some labor savings techniques based on the FoodMaxx comments, but I would say although F4L isn't my favorite they have greatly improved their overall presentation and store design in the few I've ventured into compared to their old stores. Cleanliness is a big problem with these price impact formats and I'm not sure why other than cheapness, I've never seen a Winco that wasn't sparkling clean and odor free even when in a "rough" neighborhood. I know Loblaw and Metro can run great price impact formats that look like Winco clones in Canada and they're also sparkling clean. Something about F4L/FoodsCo where they just don't even try to be clean, they probably have too much of a shrink focus and thereby won't cull perishables fast enough which leads to the noxious odor problem, and I wonder how much of their business is basically WIC recipients who get "locked into" a store?

My understanding is that specific benefits program selects the store. Maybe that is one of the criteria Kroger looked for in converting some Ralphs to F4L? I was always astounded when I would see a WIC customer make their purchases and the way they had to be rung in the register was a complete waste of government money. They would get two separate vouchers for 1 gallon of milk that had to ring separate. Hence the "must buy 2" discounted price - so the WIC customers don't get the sale price (and the taxpayers pay instead). They know they had a captive audience and as such could take advantage of the community with the lower end store. Although I know Mission Valley is a nice area there are newer massive apartment developments where about 15% of units are reserved for low income.
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Re: Kroger to merge with Albertsons?

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: March 23rd, 2023, 8:24 am

Meat isn't any good at F4L or Winco. None of these price impact formats seem to be good with it. I don't see any reason why Kroger wouldn't sell off these price impact format stores (F4L/FoodsCo) in their entirety, being the only true "division sold off" and include all of the operations with it. Again it seems based on all of the outside indications Save Mart is trying to acquire assets to grow and this would be a good one to just merge in and figure out how to construct the best of both. I'm sure there are some labor savings techniques based on the FoodMaxx comments, but I would say although F4L isn't my favorite they have greatly improved their overall presentation and store design in the few I've ventured into compared to their old stores. Cleanliness is a big problem with these price impact formats and I'm not sure why other than cheapness, I've never seen a Winco that wasn't sparkling clean and odor free even when in a "rough" neighborhood. I know Loblaw and Metro can run great price impact formats that look like Winco clones in Canada and they're also sparkling clean. Something about F4L/FoodsCo where they just don't even try to be clean, they probably have too much of a shrink focus and thereby won't cull perishables fast enough which leads to the noxious odor problem, and I wonder how much of their business is basically WIC recipients who get "locked into" a store?

My understanding is that specific benefits program selects the store. Maybe that is one of the criteria Kroger looked for in converting some Ralphs to F4L? I was always astounded when I would see a WIC customer make their purchases and the way they had to be rung in the register was a complete waste of government money. They would get two separate vouchers for 1 gallon of milk that had to ring separate. Hence the "must buy 2" discounted price - so the WIC customers don't get the sale price (and the taxpayers pay instead). They know they had a captive audience and as such could take advantage of the community with the lower end store. Although I know Mission Valley is a nice area there are newer massive apartment developments where about 15% of units are reserved for low income.
There are some stipulations in the WIC programs that the store is only reimbursed a price that is a certain percentage above the "average price" for a given item in a market. These rules vary by state but most states have this rule. For instance if I have a store accepting WIC and I sell eggs for 6.99 per dozen, but there is a rule stipulating that I will only be reimbursed up to 125% of the average egg price in the market, and the average egg price is $5, then I will only be reimbursed $6.25 for the eggs I sell to the WIC customer. Mechanically they will literally withhold part of future reimbursements if they find I was charging above average in a given month. I have also observed certain stores not allow club card use on WIC purchases, because "you can't earn rewards points when you're not paying for it." Safeway used to do that back about 10 years, I don't think they do it anymore since Albertsons bought them. That was another way to charge the government full retail.

Many states have switched to an e-WIC program so now it is not store specific anymore and any WIC customer can go to any store (and any register at said store) accepting WIC. I think it even works on self checkout at the major chains. There are a variety of reasons a WIC customer may opt to shop F4L no different than any other customer who opts to shop there including convenience, perception of lower prices for the items they are paying for with actual food stamps/cash, etc.

As far as Food Maxx goes, Food Maxx is basically the mid 90's version of Food 4 Less. Their stores have the same layout and same programs as the 90's F4L (no deli, limited bakery with zero service counter, just one tiny side of an aisle for drugstore items). In the mid 90's a SoCal F4L and a Food Maxx (if you could find one as there were not many back then- many Food Maxx Stores are former F4L Stores that Save Mart either bought from Fleming or bought from F4L franchisees) were essentially the same store- both even carrying Sunny Select private label.

I have attributed the poor conditions in F4L/FoodsCo Stores to a lack of labor and a pervasive "nobody cares how the place looks" attitude. That pervasive attitude seems to be on the part of both customers and employees. The employees in the FoodsCo units in NorCal are very hard working and efficient, but there are never enough of them.

Also regarding the F4L Las Vegas conversions to Smiths, F4L in Las Vegas was rather different from F4L in SoCal. F4L in Las Vegas was a combination of former Smiths, former Mega Foods, former Raleys/Albertsons, and then some actually built as F4L Stores. Some of the F4L Stores in Las Vegas were actually conventional stores but with self bagging checkstands installed (still had service deli, service bakery, conventional aisle layout straight up and down, two entrances/exits, etc.). When Kroger exited F4L from Las Vegas it enabled them to close all of those conventional F4L units (since they were too small for Smiths) and also get out of some locations that were poorly performing and/or really tough neighborhoods. The other big problem is F4L in Las Vegas was pulling its products from CA, while Smiths in Las Vegas was pulling its products from AZ. F4L had higher product cost in Las Vegas than Smiths did on most items, yet it usually offered lower prices. Logistically they should have been able to supply Las Vegas F4L from AZ too, but the mix is actually quite different from Smiths so it was not compatible. What is interesting also is those F4L Stores in Las Vegas, a couple that are now Smiths, had what I would call a tense atmosphere. The parking lots did not feel particularly safe due to trash/loitering issues, and something inside didn't feel right either (maybe it was the barricades forcing certain entry/exit path, multiple security guards, etc). Now as Smiths, the parking lots are cleaned up, there is still one security guard at entry/exit but traffic path is more open, and generally speaking both stores feel like any other Smiths, they feel safe, but have a lot of items locked up. The other thing is doing that solidified the position of "Smiths" as the top grocer in Nevada (maybe Wal Mart is actually #1) and the only one with a statewide presence under a single banner "Smiths." I believe before that, "Albertsons" actually had a higher store count in Nevada than "Smiths" did.

What it comes down to in Las Vegas is if you want to be competitive you supply your stores from somewhere other than CA. Back in the 90's every grocer in Las Vegas supplied from CA. Today, the biggest parties who supply Las Vegas from CA are the ethnic operators (Cardenas, 99 Ranch, Island Pacific, Seafood City) which all have very high pricing in Las Vegas. I think WinCo is supplying Las Vegas from CA and I am surprised they can be competitive but the Las Vegas WinCo units actually had mostly higher pricing than the Reno units which I found odd. Albertsons Las Vegas is radically cheaper than the Reno Safeways and Smiths pricing is pretty much the same (some prices on meat/dairy in Reno seem higher than Las Vegas).
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