🛒 Kroger-Albertsons Merger: Northeast Impact

[mjhale]

Item by item the Acme pricing is not necessarily good. It isn't clear what items are sale prices and what aren't.

When you get into PA and you look at Giant-PA pricing vs. Acme pricing, Acme pricing is mostly quite a bit higher, but they have some good specials to help buffer that somewhat.

I actually think the pricing spread between Giant-PA and Acme is greater than the price spread between Giant-MD and Safeway East. But I think Giant-PA runs a far superior store to all of those chains in terms of product mix, and also just so happens to have the best prices.

Re Safeway vs Giant-MD in terms of pricing. If one wants to stick with Giant-MD and Safeway, the best strategy is to use the Safeway 4 U deals plus their loss leaders along with Giant-MD's generally lower everyday pricing. Even though the Safeway 4 U deals aren't as numerous and are less aggressive, the deals that they do offer are still significant. For instance, I have 89 cent bags of Garden Salad for all of November, $1.89 for a 8 ounce pack of mushrooms, up to two redemptions. I also got two boxes of name brand Chex for $1.69 each via Just 4 U. You just have to forget about the vastly overpriced items at Safeway like the ones I mentioned in my other post. My shopping trip today came in around $60 for the week (it is just me). That is more than if I went to Aldi and Walmart, but today I just didn't have the energy to deal with Walmart. I understand that stores might raise prices to then lower them via sales around the holidays. Even with these price increases Giant-MD seems to have consistently better overall pricing then Safeway. How are the Just 4 U offers at Acme? Are they as aggressive as the ones that Safeway offers. That might bring down the total bill a bit to offset what looks like higher pricing at Acme vs Giant-PA.

[marketreportblog]

Random observation: I was on a commuter train home last night and sat behind three people who appeared to be Albertsons management, probably visiting from elsewhere. They didn't seem to be too familiar with the area or the train system. I did hear them talking about pricing (and now I wish I were paying closer attention to my eavesdropping) and then they said something about "well we did the same thing at Kings and Haggen..." but then they went on to talking about other unrelated things. I seriously considered introducing myself to them but I only heard the Kings and Haggen remark about 40 seconds before we got to my stop.

Not totally sure what they were doing there, since as far as I know there's no Albertsons offices in or around NYC (unless the Kings offices are still going in Parsippany, NJ?) but my best guess is they were having some sort of meeting in the city. I wish I had some news to report that I overheard but instead it's just a funny coincidence!

[storewanderer]

Random observation: I was on a commuter train home last night and sat behind three people who appeared to be Albertsons management, probably visiting from elsewhere. They didn't seem to be too familiar with the area or the train system. I did hear them talking about pricing (and now I wish I were paying closer attention to my eavesdropping) and then they said something about "well we did the same thing at Kings and Haggen..." but then they went on to talking about other unrelated things. I seriously considered introducing myself to them but I only heard the Kings and Haggen remark about 40 seconds before we got to my stop.

Not totally sure what they were doing there, since as far as I know there's no Albertsons offices in or around NYC (unless the Kings offices are still going in Parsippany, NJ?) but my best guess is they were having some sort of meeting in the city. I wish I had some news to report that I overheard but instead it's just a funny coincidence!

Could have been a number of things they did at Kings and Haggen. They bought both assets out of bankruptcy...

What is another asset currently in bankruptcy...

[marketreportblog]

Could have been a number of things they did at Kings and Haggen. They bought both assets out of bankruptcy...

What is another asset currently in bankruptcy...

True. I think, though, because it was connected to them talking about pricing, it was more like that — I think I heard them talking about price tags/signage too? But I’m not totally sure.