Integration of Albertsons and Safeway

[SamSpade]

Super Saver are still operating in West Valley City and Salt Lake City (both on Redwood Road). I asked one of my friends that lives near the Rose Park location. There is no website anywhere, but the logos are shown on the Albertsons corporate banner website here: Traditions and History
I don't think these stores have received any remodeling or updating, they must be looking really worn down behind the scenes since Food4Less was operated by Fleming Co's.

From August inside Super Saver West Valley City via Yelp:

[storewanderer]

These two SLC Super Savers were operated by Albertsons LLC Southwest Division but I would assume they are in the Intermountain Division now. No update or even an interior repaint from the F4L days as of a few years ago.

Last time I was in the one by the airport, they had added a small service deli, BBQ, and hot food case. The equipment all looked well used.

[High Plains Traveler]

My apologies for any repeat observations, since I haven't attempted to filter out anything previously noted. Also, I normally don't do such long posts, but this is a summary of my observations in my area. Also, some background is needed.

I live in SE Colorado, in a medium size metro area (population 150,000) that has both Albertsons and Safeway. To appreciate how significant this acquisition was to the market in this area, there are eight non-Walmart Supercenter big box supermarkets here. (Not counting a franchise-operated Save-A Lot). These include four Safeways, two Albertsons, and two Kroger-owned King Soopers.

I would rather poke needles in my eye than make Walmart my supermarket, so I have a great interest in this. My closest store is a Safeway, with Albertsons several miles down the road. The acquisition of Safeway has become pretty obvious over the past couple of months, with Safeway adopting several Albertsons customer policies such as "3's a Crowd". For the past month or so, both companies have adopted the "It's Just Better" tagline on their ads. In the meantime, Safeway brands at Safeway have begun the transition from "Safeway ..." (Kitchens, Select, etc.) to "Signature...". Albertsons began selling Lucerne-branded dairy products (eggs, cheese) in the last six weeks or so. My visit to Albertsons this week found a few items actually bearing the Safeway name, obviously transitioning to the Signature brand. Also, Refreshe water is showing up in the beverages aisle. Finally, Safeway, which never had games, has begun participating in the Cuisinart giveaway. Albertsons is issuing identical coupons that are glued to the same card.

My questions, probably unanswerable at this point are: 1) Will the Safeway loyalty card program continue, and if so will it be extended to Albertsons? And, 2) given that Albertsons has a relatively small market penetration into Colorado, will it eventually rebrand its stores as Safeway? I can't imagine this company with separately branded supermarkets competing against itself. Also, in my town, there is an Albertsons and Safeway about one block apart. Even though the line was that the acquisition wouldn't result in stores closing, it's unlikely they would have stores so close together.

[pseudo3d]

I've visited an LLC Albertsons and a Safeway (Randalls) in the last few months, here's what I noticed--

- For both, "Signature" brands are rolled in, Essential Everyday and "Safeway" branded products are out.
- Both have the same type of yellow signs for sales.
- Numerous sales at Randalls still require the card.
- The Safeway deli is now 2/3 Dietz & Watson, Primo Taglio on way out
- The Albertsons now brags "Signature Cafe" fried chicken, not sure if it's the Albertsons recipe (which the Oak Harbor Safeway had) under a new name or Safeway's recipe

I can't see Albertsons being dumb enough to force cards on its shoppers again, but the Safeway database seems too sweet to give up. Probably what will end up happening is just a rewards card, like MyMixx for ACME.

Not sure on comparison prices because there's no stores where I currently live (even though trucks go through town) and I haven't stuck around in the cities that do have them to compare them to the competition.

EDIT: also from what I heard, the Safeway store brands have also swept through ACME

[arizonaguy]

I've visited an LLC Albertsons and a Safeway (Randalls) in the last few months, here's what I noticed--

- For both, "Signature" brands are rolled in, Essential Everyday and "Safeway" branded products are out.
- Both have the same type of yellow signs for sales.
- Numerous sales at Randalls still require the card.
- The Safeway deli is now 2/3 Dietz & Watson, Primo Taglio on way out
- The Albertsons now brags "Signature Cafe" fried chicken, not sure if it's the Albertsons recipe (which the Oak Harbor Safeway had) under a new name or Safeway's recipe

I can't see Albertsons being dumb enough to force cards on its shoppers again, but the Safeway database seems too sweet to give up. Probably what will end up happening is just a rewards card, like MyMixx for ACME.

Not sure on comparison prices because there's no stores where I currently live (even though trucks go through town) and I haven't stuck around in the cities that do have them to compare them to the competition.

EDIT: also from what I heard, the Safeway store brands have also swept through ACME

Within the last couple of weeks the Arizona Albertsons have become more and more saturated with the Safeway store brands. I was in an Albertsons about 2 weeks ago and noticed the following "transitional" period:





As far as pricing, Safeway and Albertsons in Arizona have identical pricing on items that they both carry (although their sales signs and price tags are different).

[BillyGr]

EDIT: also from what I heard, the Safeway store brands have also swept through ACME

Shaw's as well - in fact their page had some folks who were quite upset with this "new Lucerne brand" stuff that Shaw's had replaced their brand with.

[pseudo3d]

Shaw's shoppers are also probably upset that Wild Harvest, the brand that they cultivated, is going away as well. Can't be helped...

[storewanderer]

I actually think some of the private label programs in place at Albertsons (Equaline, Wild Harvest specifically) probably should have been kept... Safeway's brands are not "all that" despite being fairly heavily pushed. Safeway's brands pissed people off before in places like IL, TX, PA... those brands may be more of a liability than an asset in some places.

I've been reading a lot of quality complaints on the Safeway Facebook page on Lucerne items, specifically milk, a few weeks ago. I also had some really poor Pantry Essentials Milk a number of years ago and have not bought any Safeway-produced dairy products since. Pretty easy to avoid since here in NV, Safeway charges $3.99 for a gallon of Pantry Essentials milk and generic milk at Raleys and Smiths is 2.78 EDLP, Scolaris has generic milk $3, and Save Mart has generic milk $2.99.

[pseudo3d]

I actually think some of the private label programs in place at Albertsons (Equaline, Wild Harvest specifically) probably should have been kept... Safeway's brands are not "all that" despite being fairly heavily pushed. Safeway's brands pissed people off before in places like IL, TX, PA... those brands may be more of a liability than an asset in some places.

I've been reading a lot of quality complaints on the Safeway Facebook page on Lucerne items, specifically milk, a few weeks ago. I also had some really poor Pantry Essentials Milk a number of years ago and have not bought any Safeway-produced dairy products since. Pretty easy to avoid since here in NV, Safeway charges $3.99 for a gallon of Pantry Essentials milk and generic milk at Raleys and Smiths is 2.78 EDLP, Scolaris has generic milk $3, and Save Mart has generic milk $2.99.

The addition of the Safeway brands in Jewel-Osco didn't seem to go over that badly, but the biggest problem of Safeway's acquired stores wasn't just the brand names replacing other generics, it was everything. From what I could tell, Randalls didn't have a strong store name in the early 1990s, but Safeway did away with its service and most of its wide selections when it acquired them (it didn't help that some Randalls were much larger than Safeway stores, 75k-80k square foot), Dominick's prices went up and merchandising went away, and Genuardi likely the same. It's not just brand names in these types of things, it's the way they operated and ran the stores. One of the first things Albertsons did after acquiring United was put in the SVU brand names, but United kept some of their in-house ones, and of course, they still ran the stores like always.

As for the milk brands, keep in mind that the milk sold in Safeway/Albertsons stores east of the Mountain Time Zone are outsourced (they have their own milk plants in the "original" divisions). Maybe it's time to switch suppliers, or procure more milk plants.

[Super S]

As for the milk brands, keep in mind that the milk sold in Safeway/Albertsons stores east of the Mountain Time Zone are outsourced (they have their own milk plants in the "original" divisions). Maybe it's time to switch suppliers, or procure more milk plants.

Some of the quality control also has to do with storage. I have seen instances where sometimes milk will be moved out to room temperature for an hour or two to clean a cooler, then put back inside the cooler. I have also seen instances of milk being delivered in non-refrigerated trucks (mainly at independent stores)

Chain stores have the resources to maintain quality with their own truck fleets. But still, the further away you are from where food is produced, the less fresh it is...