While a full Kroger rebrand may be in the cards, I don't think they'd want to give up the Albertsons brand to SpinCo, or any other brand for that matter.storewanderer wrote: ↑December 30th, 2022, 11:58 pmMain difference here is Albertsons did not have to rebrand those Lucky Stores to Albertsons. That was a pure ego move by Gary Michael the old CEO who wanted Albertsons to be a nationwide grocery brand. Albertsons had a choice and could have continued the popular Lucky name and format in CA; they did not and went with the marginal Albertsons brand which had always been a 4th tier player in California at best.
The longer things goes on and one thing after another (most recently this Express Scripts acceptance ending at Kroger owned pharmacies) I am becoming more and more convinced this merger is not going to happen.
But maybe it will happen...
With this SpinCo thing while we do not know the exact arrangement yet the general thought is some stores will have to be rebranded just due to the logistics of the situation. It is possible keeping the store banners is an option, but the point comes where it may not be possible and a rebrand may be mandatory. That is the scenario of putting the name Albertsons, Vons, or whatever, on all SpinCo Stores, comes in as a possible thing. Would rebranding a store in AZ that has been a Safeway for 60 years to Albertsons or Vons be something you'd do if you didn't have to? Absolutely not.
I am still suspicious Kroger is going to take this opportunity to rebrand everything to Kroger. Kroger has not confirmed what banners they want to use going forward. In that case SpinCo just may get to use all of these names however they want.
Realistically if Safeway was a better banner in all markets I'd almost propose Kroger banner like this but the problem is Safeway is such a second tier banner in so many markets compared to Kroger's existing banners:
Basically all non "Kroger" banner markets out west and including Kansas/Colorado/Nebraska- Safeway banner
Existing "Kroger" banner markets (including Jewel, Texas)- Kroger banner
The wild card in this is what do you do with the stuff back east... and Harris Teeter... probably just Kroger banner the whole thing.
In terms of Albertsons as a national brand, I think it's been well established it wasn't so much the Albertsons name on Lucky, it was the radical re-merchandising, staffing, and pricing changes that came with it.