The Haggen supermarket in Snohomish.
Photo by Stephanie Kramer
As Albertsons/Safeway works to merge with Kroger (Fred Meyer), the two will sell off 124 of their stores in Washington state (19 in the county), plus 456 in other states. The nation’s two biggest grocers are shedding stores to try to meet antitrust concerns that have so far interrupted the largest supermarket merger in U.S. history.
They’re selling them to New Hampshire-based C&S Wholesale Grocers, a food supplier that also runs Piggly Wiggly grocery stores.
Affected stores include two in Snohomish, one in Monroe and two in Everett in a list released July 9 (local-area store list below).
In February, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued to stop the merger. It says say it would eliminate head-to-head competition between the nation’s two biggest grocers, and that will hurt the public.
The FTC’s case begins in late August in U.S. District Court in Oregon. A judgment could take weeks.
The attorneys generals of Washington and Colorado also sued to stop the merger.
Any changes are not final until Albertsons and Kroger finish these court cases.
C&S isn’t commenting on its local plans for stores until those court cases are resolved, its spokeswoman Lauren La Bruno said.
Stores on the official divestiture list:
• Inside Snohomish: Both the Safeway and Haggen would go to C&S.
(Kroger has a Fred Meyer here.)
• Near Snohomish: The Safeway in the Silver Firs/Puget Park area would go to C&S.
• In Monroe: The Safeway would go to C&S. (Kroger has a Fred Meyer here.)
• In Everett: To go to C&S would be:
- The QFC at Broadway and Everett Avenue in the Riverside Neighborhood.
- The Safeway at 41st Street and Rucker Avenue.
In Everett, the future Albertsons-Kroger company would keep the Safeway on north Broadway, the Safeway in Silver Lake, the currently QFC-branded store in central Everett at Claremont Village, as well as all Fred Meyers.
• Lake Stevens: The Safeway on Highway 9 in Frontier Village (Conto’s Pizza, Ross, Michael’s shopping plaza) would go to C&S.
If it goes through, C&S will also own the Haggen and QFC brands outright as part of the divesture. Albertsons bought Haggen in 2016.
Overall, Albertsons would divest itself of 12 of its 15 Haggen stores. Kroger would divest itself of 54 of its 59 QFC stores.
In Snohomish along Avenue D, the Safeway and Haggen stores C&S would acquire sit within two-tenths of a mile from each other.
Snohomish City Hall is watching.
“If one or both of those two stores are closed, it will be a loss for our community, especially for the lower income, disabled, and senior residents who live nearby and rely upon the proximity of those stores,” Snohomish Mayor Linda Redmon said.
C&S’s La Bruno declined to corroborate a comment stated by Kroger’s CEO Rodney McMullen that C&S “has committed that no stores will close and no frontline workers will be laid off as a part of this agreement.”
La Bruno said, though, that “with the evolution of the grocery industry, C&S is deeply committed to our transformation strategy, which includes the expansion of our retail footprint. The purchase of these stores will enable C&S to be one of the leading grocery retailers in the United States.”
Labor unions representing grocery employees are skeptical C&S can succeed in running all these new stores.
They have opposed the merger since it was announced in 2022.
In April, a joint union statement said that the plan “would have (C&S) trying to operate a hodgepodge chain of retail stores. They have no experience operating retail stores in these states.”
Last week, in a new statement, the union said: “We remain focused on stopping the proposed mega-merger for the same reasons we have stated since it was first announced over 20 months ago — because we know it would harm workers, it would harm shoppers, it would harm suppliers and communities, and it is illegal.”
Mergers & Acquisitions
The consolidation of the traditional grocery industry to lead to two major players has been amassing over the past 25 years.
Today, Kroger and Albertsons together have more than 4,500 stores in the U.S. and more than one dozen store banner names.
Albertsons bought Safeway in 2015. Kroger bought Fred Meyer in 1998.
C&S is a food wholesaler that supplies 7,500 independents, such as IGA groceries, but adding 580 stores nationally would suddenly leapfrog it into being a large player in retail supermarkets.
The Tribune counted that C&S currently runs 171 stores: These are 91 Piggly Wiggly markets in the upper midwest, 62 more Piggly Wigglies largely in the south, plus 11 more stores under a different brand name.
C&S would grow to be about 740 stores. It would make it larger than Trader Joe’s (530 stores) or Grocery Outlet (390 stores), and be bigger than many large regional players such as H-E-B of Texas or Hy-Vee of the midwest and U.S. South, from data from Supermarket News, an industry publication. Supermarket News says WinCo Foods has 129 stores.
