Publix expanding to Virginia

Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. No non-grocery posts.
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Re: Publix expanding to Virginia

Post by klkla »

pseudo3d wrote:I don't think Ralphs or Stater Bros. did bid at all.
Of course they didn't because Albertson's went straight to Haggen and bypassed them. When the merger was announced Jack Brown had publicly mentioned that they would be interested in some of the locations. It's not likely that Ralphs and Stater Bros would have been interested in all of them but they certainly would have been interested in a lot of them. But, as I mentioned before after Haggen failed the business case for reopening them with their higher cost unionized workforce no longer made sense. The damage was already done. Except for the stores that Albertson's themselves took back only nine of the stores went to unionized chains (and two of those have not reopened yet).
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Re: Publix expanding to Virginia

Post by storewanderer »

The way this Ahold/Food Lion package was set up I don't think you could have found a single bidder to take all of the stores. The geography was too mixed. The quality of stores being divested was too mixed. Food Lions are simply not a very good asset. Martin's were probably better assets and Giant and Hannafords are great assets. I am not even sure if all that they were divesting was unionized or not...

Curious that SuperValu bought 22 stores all Food Lions. I am wondering maybe if Albertsons opted to not even bid on the Food Lions (maybe they didn't want stores that were that low of volume).

I do think Food Lion gets a bad rap and is a good enough simple, fair price, store. But the facts are their stores are extremely low volume and they seem to have a really bad reputation.
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Re: Publix expanding to Virginia

Post by SamSpade »

So I take it most Food Lions do not look like this?
http://www.savannaharchitects.com/blog/ ... /foodlion/
http://www.southeasternproducts.com/food-lion-102/

The only thing I know about the poor Food Lion chain is that report that ABC News"Primetime Live" put out about re-labeling expired meats and such.
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Re: Publix expanding to Virginia

Post by mbz321 »

SamSpade wrote:So I take it most Food Lions do not look like this?
http://www.savannaharchitects.com/blog/ ... /foodlion/
http://www.southeasternproducts.com/food-lion-102/

The only thing I know about the poor Food Lion chain is that report that ABC News"Primetime Live" put out about re-labeling expired meats and such.

While Food Lion has vastly improved their image since then (and there was a lot of controversy about that news story how it really wasn't all legitimate), including some pretty nice, modern stores, and prices which I think are pretty decent, the majority of them look like your run-of-the-mill generic 80's and 90's grocery store in old, poor locations. I'm sure Weis is picking the 'cream of the crop out of their locations'.
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Re: Publix expanding to Virginia

Post by pseudo3d »

mbz321 wrote:
SamSpade wrote:So I take it most Food Lions do not look like this?
http://www.savannaharchitects.com/blog/ ... /foodlion/
http://www.southeasternproducts.com/food-lion-102/

The only thing I know about the poor Food Lion chain is that report that ABC News"Primetime Live" put out about re-labeling expired meats and such.

While Food Lion has vastly improved their image since then (and there was a lot of controversy about that news story how it really wasn't all legitimate), including some pretty nice, modern stores, and prices which I think are pretty decent, the majority of them look like your run-of-the-mill generic 80's and 90's grocery store in old, poor locations. I'm sure Weis is picking the 'cream of the crop out of their locations'.
In regards to FL and ABC, from what I've heard, FL sued not on the fact that it was faked, but that they lied their way in with fake résumés. Food Lion stores from my impression still seem to be largely trapped in the past. They never caught on in Dallas or Houston even before the report (HEB Pantry made it to the Houston market first by a few months with a few dozen locations, Food Lion projected 40+ stores in Houston and ended up with 13 at peak; Dallas fared slightly better but they never made a major impression with shoppers). They didn't (and many still don't, from what I've read) have pharmacies.

I think Bloom was a major step for them, but they never developed it or expanded on it, and eventually Delhaize pulled the plug on it.

I wonder what SuperValu will do with the Food Lions it bought. It's spinning off Sav-a-Lot, but still owns many locations (I believe it is franchised, after all). Could be a County Market, could even be a new brand.
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Re: Publix expanding to Virginia

Post by BillyGr »

pseudo3d wrote: I wonder what SuperValu will do with the Food Lions it bought. It's spinning off Sav-a-Lot, but still owns many locations (I believe it is franchised, after all). Could be a County Market, could even be a new brand.
I think somewhere they mentioned their Shoppers brand as being the one that was taking them over?

mbz321 wrote: While Food Lion has vastly improved their image since then (and there was a lot of controversy about that news story how it really wasn't all legitimate), including some pretty nice, modern stores, and prices which I think are pretty decent, the majority of them look like your run-of-the-mill generic 80's and 90's grocery store in old, poor locations. I'm sure Weis is picking the 'cream of the crop out of their locations'.
Although in this situation (unlike the A&P where all the stores were available) wouldn't they be limited by the ones that needed to be sold to eliminate competition, and the thought that if there were stores close together the selling chain would keep the better one(s) and sell the not as good locations?
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Re: Publix expanding to Virginia

Post by SamSpade »

BillyGr wrote:
pseudo3d wrote: I wonder what SuperValu will do with the Food Lions it bought. It's spinning off Sav-a-Lot, but still owns many locations (I believe it is franchised, after all). Could be a County Market, could even be a new brand.
I think somewhere they mentioned their Shoppers brand as being the one that was taking them over?

mbz321 wrote: While Food Lion has vastly improved their image since then (and there was a lot of controversy about that news story how it really wasn't all legitimate), including some pretty nice, modern stores, and prices which I think are pretty decent, the majority of them look like your run-of-the-mill generic 80's and 90's grocery store in old, poor locations. I'm sure Weis is picking the 'cream of the crop out of their locations'.
Although in this situation (unlike the A&P where all the stores were available) wouldn't they be limited by the ones that needed to be sold to eliminate competition, and the thought that if there were stores close together the selling chain would keep the better one(s) and sell the not as good locations?
It's mentioned elsewhere here that the stores for SuperValu will be "Shop 'n' Save."
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Re: Publix expanding to Virginia

Post by BillyGr »

SamSpade wrote:
BillyGr wrote:
pseudo3d wrote: I wonder what SuperValu will do with the Food Lions it bought. It's spinning off Sav-a-Lot, but still owns many locations (I believe it is franchised, after all). Could be a County Market, could even be a new brand.
I think somewhere they mentioned their Shoppers brand as being the one that was taking them over?

mbz321 wrote: While Food Lion has vastly improved their image since then (and there was a lot of controversy about that news story how it really wasn't all legitimate), including some pretty nice, modern stores, and prices which I think are pretty decent, the majority of them look like your run-of-the-mill generic 80's and 90's grocery store in old, poor locations. I'm sure Weis is picking the 'cream of the crop out of their locations'.
Although in this situation (unlike the A&P where all the stores were available) wouldn't they be limited by the ones that needed to be sold to eliminate competition, and the thought that if there were stores close together the selling chain would keep the better one(s) and sell the not as good locations?
It's mentioned elsewhere here that the stores for SuperValu will be "Shop 'n' Save."
I did see on another post after posting here - don't remember which site I saw the Shoppers listed on, but then again at least one site had some of the stores being sold under the wrong brands so that could be the same problem here.
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Re: Publix expanding to Virginia

Post by rwsandiego »

BillyGr wrote:
SamSpade wrote:
BillyGr wrote:
I think somewhere they mentioned their Shoppers brand as being the one that was taking them over?




Although in this situation (unlike the A&P where all the stores were available) wouldn't they be limited by the ones that needed to be sold to eliminate competition, and the thought that if there were stores close together the selling chain would keep the better one(s) and sell the not as good locations?
It's mentioned elsewhere here that the stores for SuperValu will be "Shop 'n' Save."
I did see on another post after posting here - don't remember which site I saw the Shoppers listed on, but then again at least one site had some of the stores being sold under the wrong brands so that could be the same problem here.
An article in the Baltimore Sun mentioned the stores Supervalu is taking will be converted to Shop'n'Save.

Baltimore Sun article
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Re: Publix expanding to Virginia

Post by storewanderer »

If I am not mistaken I think some Shop N Save Stores in the east (PA?) are independents on licenses but the ones in Missouri are corporate owned stores.

Maybe Supervalu plans to ultimately push these stores to independents.

I read in another article Weis has no debt. That is wonderful and explains a lot about how they have been able to keep going despite what appear to be somewhat low store volumes and in general not overly exciting stores in some really competitive places. I wonder how much of their real estate they own.
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