of 2002 Fred Mayer grocery store closure Serving Lockwood has taken a toll on the Gresham neighborhood, creating a hole in the center and one less food option.
The next hit came in 2015, when the Albertsons and Safeway brands merged, resulting in the closure of a nearby Safeway store. As a result, the Albertsons store was the last chain supermarket in the area.
There is now an offer to buy Albertsons from Kroger, and residents suspect that store will also close. If Albertsons in Lockwood were to close as a result of the merger, it would be “a dent in the community,” said Katherine Nicewood, the president of the neighborhood association, but it would be one of the most expensive options left. It is one.
“Rockwood is considered a food desert, and we seek to provide a place where affordable, healthier food options are easily accessible,” said Nicewood. is another setback.
The $24.6 billion sale would bring Albertsons, Safeway, Fred Meyer and QFC under one umbrella, leaving the chain with dozens of now-deemed redundant Oregon stores.
Oregonian/OregonLive identified approximately 33 Kroger and Albertsons-owned stores across the state located within a mile of each other, including 20 stores in the Portland metropolitan area. 100 or more are less than 2 miles apart.
Many are within line of sight of nearby stores. For example, in Oregon City, Fred Meyer, Safeway, and Albertsons are within blocks of each other.
Albertsons and Kroger in Oregon
Dozens of Oregon grocery stores owned by Kroger Co. (Fred Meyer and QFC) and Albertsons Cos. (Albertsons and Safeway) are located near other stores and would be considered redundant if the chains merged There is a possibility. Here, stores are shown with a one-mile buffer.
Kroger and Albertsons are two of the state’s largest grocery chains, with a total of 171 stores.
Kroger and Albertsons have to sell hundreds of stores nationwide to ease anticompetitive concerns from regulators, including the Federal Trade Commission, retail analysts and consumer advocates say. It is highly likely that it will not.
Anticipating this, Kroger and Albertsons state: publication Last week, they disclosed their intention to sell between 100 and 375 locations by spinning them off to another company (called SpinCo in the filing).
In Oregon, Kroger and Albertsons are two of the largest grocery chains, and their combined market share is even larger than Walmart.
Kroger didn’t address potential store closures But retail analysts say it’s common for stores to close during major retail mergers. Spinning off redundant stores is also not a surefire solution.
Followed by Albertsons and Safeway merged in 2015regulators required the chain to find buyers for about 20 stores in Oregon to remain competitive in the market.
Haggen, a small Washington grocery chain, has agreed to buy It also rebranded 146 West Coast Safeway and Albertsons stores in conjunction with its merger with Safeway. But within months, an overextended Haggen filed for bankruptcy, sold some of those stores We will return to Albertson for a much cheaper price. Others were completely closed.
Kroger and Albertsons executives expect the deal to close in early 2024, at which point the two companies will begin choosing which stores to stay in and under which flag to operate.
Kevin Coupe, Retail Analyst and Grocery Blog Author morning news beatbelieves the companies’ proposal to sell up to 375 stores may not satisfy regulators.
“I think they’re going to have to sell nearly 1,000 stores,” Coupe says. “This is probably a much tougher FTC than they’re used to dealing with, and we’re in a time of rising consumer prices.”
Kroger said the proposed combined company would generate $209 billion in annual sales and operate 4,996 stores nationwide. Closer to rival Walmart, it will fall short of the retail giant with just $10 billion in annual sales.
Meanwhile, the deal faces pushback from consumer advocates, unions and politicians as companies look to consolidate stores amid soaring food prices.
Jagjit Nagra, executive director of Oregon Consumer Justice, a nonprofit, said the proposed deal would be bad for consumers because less competition could lead to uncontrolled food prices. . He said potential mergers could also result in more food deserts, likely on the fringes of low-income areas.
“They’re not going to close the brightest stars in the trembling,” he said. “They will probably go to low-performing, high-performing stores, for example, stores that are adjacent to rougher neighborhoods, high-crime areas, or more rural areas.”
Kelly Fuller, who lives in Depoe Bay on Oregon’s central coast, said the closest Fred Meyer and Safeway in Newport are across the street.
“If Kroger and Albertson allow a merger, they will almost certainly lose Safeway,” Fuller said.
She said Lincoln City has already lost its pharmacy Bymart withdraws from pharmacy businessand then the competing pharmacies became more “crowded and confused”.
And she said having two supermarkets is important because the pandemic has wreaked havoc on supply chains.
“Sometimes when Fred Meyer was missing his foundation, Safeway still had them,” she said. prize.”
Nagra, the state’s consumer advocacy group, said the Kroger-Albertsons merger would eliminate an area that was already a food desert with even fewer options.
“It’s not just taking away people’s ability to make choices, it’s actually directly impacting people’s health,” he said. “Because I think it’s reasonable to assume that if you don’t have access to quality food, the health effects are not as strong.”
He said the deal “may cause more harm and put pressure on consumers who are already struggling to afford food.”
But the leader of Kroger said in a statement We will reinvest $500 million to “lower prices for our customers” and $1 billion to raise employee wages and benefits.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Utah Sen. Mike Lee earlier this week. said in a statement The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights announced that it will hold a public hearing focused on this proposed merger and the consequences consumers may face if this transaction goes forward. will be held,” he said.
Klobuchar and Lee said the commission has “serious concerns” about the merger and wants a grocery market that “can remain competitive enough to put food on the table of American families.”
— Christine de Leon [email protected]503-221-8506