Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson on Monday sued to block the proposed merger of Kroger and Albertsons, two of the nation’s largest grocery chains.
In the suit filed in King County Superior Court, Ferguson argued that the $25-billion deal would harm consumers and raise prices, The Seattle Times reported. Kroger and Albertsons have more than 300 locations in the state and account for more than half of its grocery sales, according to the suit.
“This merger is bad for Washington shoppers and workers,” Ferguson said in a news release Monday. “Shoppers will have fewer choices and less competition, and, without a competitive marketplace, they will pay higher prices at the grocery store.”
Think about what this would look like for you locally, call your representatives and let them know you care and oppose this issue.
----- Kroger brands: -----
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Baker’s
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City Market
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Dillons
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Food 4 Less
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Foods Co
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Fred Meyer
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Fry’s
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Gerbes
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Jay C Food Store
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King Soopers
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Kroger
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Mariano’s
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Metro Market
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Pay-Less Super Markets
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Pick’n Save
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QFC
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Ralphs
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Ruler
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Smith’s Food and Drug
----- Albertsons brands: ------
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Acme Markets: 162 locations (CT, DE, MD, NJ, NY and PA)
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Albertsons: 381 locations (AZ, AR, CA, CO, ID, LA, MT, NV, NM, ND, OR, TX, UT, WA and WY)
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Albertsons Market: 23 locations (NM)
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Amigos: 4 locations (TX)
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Andronico’s: 7 locations (CA)
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Balducci’s: 8 locations (CT, MD, NY, VA)
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Carrs: 11 locations (AK)
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Haggen: 15 locations (WA)
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Jewel-Osco: 188 locations (IL, IA, and IN)
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Kings Food Markets: 19 locations (CT, NJ, NY)
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Lucky: 4 locations (UT)
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Market Street: 19 locations (NM and TX)
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Pak 'n Save: 2 locations (CA)
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Pavilions: 27 locations (Southern California)
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Randalls: 28 locations (Greater Houston and Greater Austin, TX)
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Safeway: 914 locations (AK, AZ, CA, CO, DC, DE, HI, ID, MD, MT, NE, NV, NM, OR, SD, VA, WA, WY)
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Shaw’s: 127 locations (MA, ME, NH, RI and VT)
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Star Market: 21 locations (MA)
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Tom Thumb: 65 locations (Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, TX)
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United Supermarkets: 97 locations (Texas Panhandle) plus 39 United Express locations (NM and TX)
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Vons: 194 locations (Southern California and Southern Nevada)
Yup. We live in Washington, and our town has a QFC, a Fred Meyer, and a Safeway. If this deal goes through, Kroger will own all three. Not only will prices probably go up but they will likely shut down the Safeway (where we prefer to shop) because it is just across the street from Fred Meyer. We might end up doing our regular shopping at Grocery Outlet, which is the only other option in town.
At least you still have whole foods and Amazon fresh as independent stores. Oh wait.
I wonder if Albertson’s owned Jewel-Osco back in the 80s. We had one in my town and it was pretty good as both a supermarket and a drugstore. I think Jewel was the supermarket and Osco was the drugstore.
They’ve only owned Jewel-Osco since 1999; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewel-Osco
No they didn’t
How about a list of independent chains? Off the top of my head, I can think of Stater Bros, Publix, and HEB, so independents seem to be regional. Maybe Trader Joe’s.
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I literally shop at five different grocery stores in an attempt to avoid getting overly gouged. Imagine if I did not even have that option because they were all owned by the same company.
The words “anti trust” mean nothing in 2024. There are literally federal laws against businesses merging to form an unfair advantage and buying up all of their competitors like this. But anti trust laws are treated like those silly old timey laws like you cannot chain your alligator to a fire hydrant or you can’t carry an ice cream cone in your back pocket. Yeah, technically they’re on the books, but when’s the last time they were truly enforced?
True… That said the existing already amount of foods made by the same companies doesn’t help either.
An Ourobezos.
Mergers and monopolies are a feature
Christ, someone needs to block it.
Weird. I thought kroger had bought out albertson’s years ago. At least 15 years or so ago, all the albertson’s stores (like 10 that I knew of) became krogers in my area.
The biggest move with Albertson’s in the last while (maybe a little less than 10 years ago) was buying Safeway. Maybe you’re thinking of that, and/or maybe they closed some stores and Kroger came in instead? Here in Denver they’re looking at selling some stores to the company that owns Piggly Wiggly to make regulators happy - could be that something like that was done.
As part of the Albertsons-Safeway merger a number of locations were required to be sold, and often they were sold to another grocery chain.
I’m sure they either sold those specific stores to Kroger, or closed and Kroger bought the building like you said, but I just haven’t seen an Albertson’s in decades here. I really thought they had went under.
I think it’s pretty regionalized. Here in Denver, the few Albertsons I know of were turned into Safeway after the merger. But I went to an Albertsons in New Mexico just a few months ago
Fuck, North of Seattle off, iirc, 238th and 99, there was an Albertsons and a Safeway kiddie corner to each other, and some brilliant person decided what was best for each store was to switch locations, with each other. These are the big brains here, people, better look out!
I hope whomever initiated that set in motion an unstoppable Rube Goldman chain of events on his way out after telling the board of executives to fuck themselves off a cliff, and if they’re not the case, then I hope they physically join the rest at the bottom of our metaphorical cliff
They run several brand names depending on which market you’re in
I’ve never been in a Kroger’s but I hear a lot about them, and I know first hand how shit Albertson’s is.
If those are the only two choices people in Washington have, that already sucks.
Washington has a few grocery store franchises, but only a few standard grocers with Kroger & Albertsons dominating the market.
Standard Grocers:
- QFC (Kroger)
- Safeway & Albertsons (Albersons)
- Red Apple
Discount:
- Saars
- Grocery Outlet
Bulk:
- Winco
- Costco
Super Centers:
- Walmart
- Target
- Fred Meyer (Kroger)
Specialty:
- Whole Foods
- PCC
- Trader Joe’s
- Metropolitan Markert
Asian:
- H-Mart
- Uwajimaya
Outlet:
- Cash-n-Carry
You want to know how bad Kroger is? I’d much rather go to an Albertsons. In fact, I have a Kroger owned store less than a mile from where I live, but if I need certain things, or just want a more pleasant shopping experience, I’ll go the 10 minutes to the Albertsons or Hmart.
We have a few others, at least near major population centers, that range from cheap to pricey. I don’t see Costco going away anytime soon for example.
Holy fuck, I didn’t realize they also owned QFC and Fred Meyer. If they went through, what would be left? Amazon, Costco, and met market?
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Kroger owns so many other grocery chains that I kind of assumed Albertson’s was already one.
Albertsons is the same they have like 14-15 brands they bought out. So these two merging would be a huge market share of grocery stores.
Kroger typically just operates one chain per region, which was a local chain they bought out for expansion. They don’t have multiple stores in an area that compete with each other or have different names.
Seattle area we have qfc, Metro market, and Fred Meyer who are all Kroger brands. To be honest I thought Safeway was part of Kroger as well but just learned they are owned by Albertsons.
Yeah if this goes through there’s not going to be any choice left for groceries near me. We already only barely have a choice here this merger would be bleak
Winco, Costco, PCC, Whole Foods (yay amazon), and all the Asian places like H Mart and Ranch Market. Probably only applies to the I-5 corridor from Tacoma to Everett.
