Retail Watchers

Harris Teeter is selling their Hunter Farms Dairy to a Mid-Atlantic cooperative. Considering that Kroger owns so many of their own dairies, why is HT selling one off?

https://www.supermarketnews.com/dairy/h ... airy-plant

cw06 wrote: ↑August 18th, 2021, 10:17 am Harris Teeter is selling their Hunter Farms Dairy to a Mid-Atlantic cooperative. Considering that Kroger owns so many of their own dairies, why is HT selling one off?

https://www.supermarketnews.com/dairy/h ... airy-plant

Since Kroger already had stores in the areas where HT also is, could this just be a duplicate plant that they don't need (that is, they don't need one for HT and one for Kroger, one can do for both)?

This seems a lot like the sale of the Turkey Hill dairy a few years ago.

Kroger is slowly selling off "non core" businesses.

arizonaguy wrote: ↑August 18th, 2021, 9:23 pm This seems a lot like the sale of the Turkey Hill dairy a few years ago.

Kroger is slowly selling off "non core" businesses.

This dairy supplied private label dairy products for an entire Kroger Division (Harris Teeter). Does it overlap with another Kroger dairy facility?

I guess as dairy consumption continues to fall the fact is we don't need as many dairies anymore...

Not sure I'd call this a "non core" business. Turkey Hill was a bit questionable given it was far flung, was an actual branded product sold at various Kroger competitors, but was not supplying any Kroger Divisions with private label products. I did consider Turkey Hill to be an actual brand, not a private label. That could be subject to different interpretation.

Turkey Hill was a dairy that got into the convenience store business to sell its products, just like WaWa.

storewanderer wrote: ↑August 18th, 2021, 11:46 pm

arizonaguy wrote: ↑August 18th, 2021, 9:23 pm This seems a lot like the sale of the Turkey Hill dairy a few years ago.

Kroger is slowly selling off "non core" businesses.

This dairy supplied private label dairy products for an entire Kroger Division (Harris Teeter). Does it overlap with another Kroger dairy facility?

I guess as dairy consumption continues to fall the fact is we don't need as many dairies anymore...

Not sure I'd call this a "non core" business. Turkey Hill was a bit questionable given it was far flung, was an actual branded product sold at various Kroger competitors, but was not supplying any Kroger Divisions with private label products. I did consider Turkey Hill to be an actual brand, not a private label. That could be subject to different interpretation.

I considered Turkey Hill to be a premium private label dairy brand, akin to Safeway / Signature Select. Turkey Hill was also the private label brand for some, what I considered, private label teas and other beverages.

Like Turkey Hill, it seems that Hunter Farms products are sold at other retailers and facilities other than Harris Teeter.

I know here in Phoenix Kroger (Fry's) has their own dairy facilities for private label dairy. Other retailers (WinCo, Walmart, Target) seem to partner with independent dairies for private label dairy products. I don't know what the better strategy is long term.

To me both the Turkey Hill and Hunter Farms sales seem like cash grabs to funnel into the online / Ocado money suck.

[quote=arizonaguy post_id=31500 time=1629431718 user_id=2270
I considered Turkey Hill to be a premium private label dairy brand, akin to Safeway / Signature Select. Turkey Hill was also the private label brand for some, what I considered, private label teas and other beverages.

Like Turkey Hill, it seems that Hunter Farms products are sold at other retailers and facilities other than Harris Teeter.

I know here in Phoenix Kroger (Fry's) has their own dairy facilities for private label dairy. Other retailers (WinCo, Walmart, Target) seem to partner with independent dairies for private label dairy products. I don't know what the better strategy is long term.

To me both the Turkey Hill and Hunter Farms sales seem like cash grabs to funnel into the online / Ocado money suck.
[/quote]

Turkey Hill is/was sold by many competitor supermarkets back east for decades. Even Safeway would sometimes have it on their front page of their ads (10+ years ago). Out west where Turkey Hill was largely only present at Kroger divisions it was more of a premium private label. Turkey Hill was also distributed in regions where Kroger had no stores at all of any kind, like Oklahoma.

From the best I can tell, nobody sells "Hunter Farms" brand dairy products besides Harris Teeter. This places does make some products for other parties but you are not going to see "Hunter Farms" tea, ice cream, milk, frozen ice cream cakes, in a Safeway or any competitor.

It seems like Kroger has a dairy plant in Virginia (Westover Dairy) and another one in Georgia (Centennial Farms). I have no idea about capacity, but my guess those two can probably supply the Harris Teeter stores.

The Dean Foods bankruptcy really shook up the dairy industry nationally. I imagine we will be seeing more plant sales as the market readjusts.

This was doubtless a capacity utilization situation. With dairy switching away from cow's milk to plant-based products, Kroger just had one too many production facilities in the southeast. WV and GA will amply cover the Harris Teeter footprint and if there are scattered areas where it's uneconomic to self-source fluid milk they can just bring in Deans'/Mar-va Maid (the brand used by the buyer) . Deans' bankruptcy did "upset the apple-cart"...around MI/IN. Walmart put in a dairy in northern Indiana which covers IN/MI and probably Chicagoland (not that Walmart's particularly a factor in Michigan). Meijer already has a dairy in west Michigan (Purple Cow) and Kroger one in metro Detroit (Michigan Dairy). Walmart moving to their own dairy put the "nail" in Deans' dairy in Grand Rapids (Country Fresh). A couple years ago, after Walmart set up their dairy in northern Indiana Deans stopped picking up fluid milk from farmers on multiple routes in Michigan and caused a good bit of consternation and some farmers left the dairy business. Being a peninsula is tough for distribution of heavy/liquid commodities...

I believe Harris Teeter has announced they will remain supplied by Hunter Farms?