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Shedding a tear for those who cannot experience the wonders of the Publix Sub
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Oct 29, 2015 19:08
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You can't explain Wegmans. You have to experience Wegmans.
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Oct 30, 2015 17:28
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Insane Totoro posted:You can't explain Wegmans. You have to experience Wegmans. Did you just spew a corporate catchphrase? It sure as hell sounds like you did. If so, naughty naughty. By the way, is anyone learned enough to explain why grocery stores are so regionally diverse compared to other retail stores? Every other sort of sales favors massive national chains because they can enforce standardized quality control, advertise very effectively, and so on. I know grocer margins are razor thin but that doesn't seem like enough to explain the difference, to me. In fact that seems like it would come out in favor of national chains, what with the economies of scale and better bargaining power.
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Oct 30, 2015 19:21
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Just out of curiosity, are any of the large chains near you guys behind on switching over to chipped credit cards? Fred Meyer has had the terminals since early summer I think, but they're still limited to magnetic stripe mode only. I heard from a friend whose wife works in their corporate offices that they just haven't updated some part of their system yet. It's really surprising to me that a chain as large as them (who's owned by an enormous grocery store company) wouldn't be totally on the ball with this.
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Oct 30, 2015 19:38
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Trader Joe's (at least near me in SoCal) has switched to chip-capable terminals. There seem to be some minor issues with the software, but it's working.
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Oct 30, 2015 19:43
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stubblyhead posted:Just out of curiosity, are any of the large chains near you guys behind on switching over to chipped credit cards? Fred Meyer has had the terminals since early summer I think, but they're still limited to magnetic stripe mode only. I heard from a friend whose wife works in their corporate offices that they just haven't updated some part of their system yet. It's really surprising to me that a chain as large as them (who's owned by an enormous grocery store company) wouldn't be totally on the ball with this. The Targets here in Denver seem to have them, people get confused by having to hold it in there for a few seconds. Nathilus posted:Did you just spew a corporate catchphrase? It sure as hell sounds like you did. If so, naughty naughty. I actually started this thread thinking grocery stores were way more regionally diverse than they actually are. Hearing about how many buyouts have taken place, it seems if you follow the buyout chain, there aren't nearly as many totally unique stores as I thought.
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Oct 30, 2015 19:54
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OctoberBlues posted:The Targets here in Denver seem to have them, people get confused by having to hold it in there for a few seconds. Our target has them too which is kind of funny to me because I have a target visa card and they haven't bothered to send us a new one yet.
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Oct 30, 2015 20:33
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MA/NH here I would say if you don't shop at Market Basket you aren't a real resident, but the problem is that it is always busy as poo poo and they legit run out of the most common things because of it. Plus side is that they have huge selection, cheap prices, integrated sub/pizza/deli for dinner and its respectable as gently caress. As someone else mentioned the long time CEO was fired (30 yr family drama building up), and essentially all the employees and corporate folks went on strike out of solidarity (reminder, no union here) for several weeks until the original CEO got financial backing and bought majority ownership. Then because he was so grateful everything was 4% off for a year except alcohol and tobacco. Reason is they hire an insane amount of young kids as their first jobs and since they are always expanding a surprising amount of people end up in like $55+k salaried full benefit grocery management positions with no college education and there is profit sharing for I think every employee (even baggers I'm pretty sure, or at least a bonus) I was jealous some time ago when I had a few friends making bank, but have since relaxed a bit and it is a pretty amazing old fashioned business doing right by its customers (id encourage googling about the strike as it sums all this up pretty well). That said, I shop at Hannafords because it is 10 minutes closer and I can shop with peace of mind.
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Oct 30, 2015 20:57
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Nathilus posted:Did you just spew a corporate catchphrase? It sure as hell sounds like you did. If so, naughty naughty. Essentially it is regionally preferred foods and inability of the larger chains to specialize down to the specific regions and sub regions. The larger you are and the more you rely on manufacturers efficiencies in running the same formulas for certain products the less you can specialize. It is not something that can't be overcome but it is difficult to hit all the right notes in all the right areas and still gain efficiency in costs.
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Oct 31, 2015 03:55
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Crazyweasel posted:MA/NH here They are kind of old fashioned especially in the sense that they by and large hire women to be cashiers and men to be stock/baggers, but that said my friend was a cashier for the longest time and got like, significant Christmas bonuses and stuff, like it was the 1960s or some poo poo.
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Oct 31, 2015 18:19
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New Jersey and heck, the entire NYC area is really obsessed with food, and groceries are no exception. ShopRite is the undisputed king; they tend to vary a bit in quality as they are actually a bunch of smaller chains that are part of a buying cooperative that also works together for things like marketing. Some of their stores are lame, others are indistinguishable from Wegmans or Whole Foods. Stop & Shop is the also ran, all of their stores are really generic and boring for the most part, and tend to be a bit more expensive. A&P (more of a midscale chain) and Pathmark (in poorer areas) was probably the third biggest group, but they're going bankrupt right now, with a lot of their stores being split up among other smaller competitors like Acme (boring and generic from what I've seen) and Foodtown (same.) FYI Stop & Shop is exactly the same as Giant in the DC area, but they're branded differently because they don't want Giant to be unionized. We have a lot of Wegmans, Whole Foods, Aldi's, and Trader Joe's, with a few other regional upscale chains that might not be familiar to the rest of the country, like Fairway (this crazy place from New York that is slowly expanding, and probably my favorite of them all although the quality's gone downhill), Kings (pricey, smaller version of Whole Foods), McCaffrey's (pretty much the same as Kings), and some other regional ones, I'm less familiar with ones that tend to focus in urban areas. NYC of course has Zabar's (like Fairway in that you can get a lot of exotic items and prepared foods), and competitors like Citarella's, Westside Market, Dean & DeLuca, and lots of other places catering to rich people. There's also a few H-Marts which are insanely awesome (super high quality Korean grocery and really cheap.) I think we're one of the few places that has chains that exclusively cater to the Indian market.
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Nov 1, 2015 02:29
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stubblyhead posted:Just out of curiosity, are any of the large chains near you guys behind on switching over to chipped credit cards? Fred Meyer has had the terminals since early summer I think, but they're still limited to magnetic stripe mode only. I heard from a friend whose wife works in their corporate offices that they just haven't updated some part of their system yet. It's really surprising to me that a chain as large as them (who's owned by an enormous grocery store company) wouldn't be totally on the ball with this. Hilariously, Walmart was the vanguard, as far as my area goes. They had them running months before the deadline to get them up, and most of the stores here still don't have the chip readers activated yet. WinCo doesn't take credit cards at all, but debit cards have them now too, so they need to get on that poo poo.
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Nov 3, 2015 00:09
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Baker's (Kroger) put in the chip readers but hasn't activated them yet. Really the only store I've been to that makes you put in the chipped card is Target. Everywhere else is still swipe only.
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Nov 3, 2015 01:04
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Nathilus posted:Did you just spew a corporate catchphrase? It sure as hell sounds like you did. If so, naughty naughty. I'll hardly call myself learned, but I got to observe two ends of the grocery retail spectrum. Grocery sales are very localized compared to many other industries. If I'm buying computer parts, I'll wait a couple of days if I can get a better priced part delivered to my door. Not so much for food. Wal-Mart will open a store near competition, then spend 1 year flooding money into that new store to poach skilled workers and guarantee that their store is better than the competition can offer. Sometimes operating at a loss for a long time isn't even enough. It's difficult to break food-buying habits. Smaller chains capitalize on certain things to hold their advantages. There's a huge push in upper-tier Wal-Mart management to incorporate local draws to their stores. You see this manifest in the form of things like WIC-stores built within a supercenter located in a low-income area, or a produce section stocking jalapenos, roma tomatos, and white onions in a Mexican flag colored array right at the front door of a store in a Hispanic area. Then you have stores like Whole Foods that aren't trying to compete with the big national grocers. They're spreading, but they have a very specific customer base in mind. They want educated customers with very specific tastes in mind and money to spend. They spend a lot of time watching the hype spread from outlets like Dr. Oz. They hire for a specific look, typically healthy young people with a "counterculture" look. Think dreadlocks and ear gauges on young whites. Simultaneously non-threatening yet "cool" for an upper class white customer base. Their technology and procedures are primitive compared to something like Wal-Mart, but they'll have twice as many people on the salesfloor, and they screen their basic workers for knowledge of things like "GMO foods". These stores are all savagely fighting over relatively small numbers of customers. There are deeply ingrained factors at play here that cannot be easily overlooked. The Hispanic grocery store near my house is the nicest, most well-maintained store I ever see. Whole Foods will never touch their customer base, despite having similarities in terms of salesfloor staff and quality/cleanliness of salesfloor. Wal-Mart struggles for that same customer base, but this is a war without end and without clear victors. Kroger and Albertsons and Safeway struggle and die in the middle ground, only surviving due to historical customer loyalty or rare victories in sectors like customer service.
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Nov 3, 2015 06:32
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Publix is the best and if you say otherwise you can gently caress right off back to your igloo you carpetbagging yankee trash. Publix is generally the best place to shop and has the best loving deli ever but in general it is kind of expensive to shop there. Kroger is cheap as gently caress but the food sucks and environment is really crowded and lovely.
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Nov 3, 2015 17:17
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Roxy Rouge posted:Essentially it is regionally preferred foods and inability of the larger chains to specialize down to the specific regions and sub regions. The larger you are and the more you rely on manufacturers efficiencies in running the same formulas for certain products the less you can specialize. It is not something that can't be overcome but it is difficult to hit all the right notes in all the right areas and still gain efficiency in costs. Hell, the local chains specialize down to specific neighborhoods. The megastores dabble with having a few different variations like Walmart Neighborhood Market or wtfe but they're still not nearly as specialized.
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Nov 3, 2015 18:15
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OctoberBlues posted:
I used to live in a neighborhood with all 3 within 2 miles. Albertsons was closest, but I generally only went for the wing bar, donuts, meat specials, and when I just needed something NOW and didn't care what it cost. Clientele was Ok-ish. Service...well, they kinda tried. Expensive and run down. Kings has the best prices, but the store nearest us was just this endless parade of white trash people screaming at each other. Honestly, Save-A-Lot was more pleasant on an evening or weekend. A Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market opened nearby that sucked away the worst people, it got remodeled, and it's OK now. I was a Safeway person. Cleanest, least crappy clientele, their own gas station in parking lot. In the new hood the closest is a SuperTarget. And 3 King Soopers. So now we're Sooper people by default.
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Nov 5, 2015 04:34
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Gabriel Pope posted:Hell, the local chains specialize down to specific neighborhoods. The megastores dabble with having a few different variations like Walmart Neighborhood Market or wtfe but they're still not nearly as specialized. Do the big chains specialise at all depending on what part of the country you are in? In the UK you basically don't have any regional variation in the stores you see, it's all the same big brands (Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl) with maaaaaybe a split between Waitrose in the South and Netto in the North. However the big chains will have quite a bit of variation depending on location. For example, my old local Asda was in a very strongly Indian and Polish neighbourhood, so had a whole aisle full of spices, beans and jarred vegetables like sauerkraut as well as loads of exotic fruit and veg. When I went up to Scotland (5 hours drive for reference) and went to Asda there had none of that, but an extra fridge aisle dedicated to all sorts of sausages, haggis and other meat. Is there anything like that in the US or are you pretty much guaranteed to find the same stuff in the same brand shops?
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Nov 5, 2015 10:13
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MikeCrotch posted:Is there anything like that in the US or are you pretty much guaranteed to find the same stuff in the same brand shops? In my experience the closest you'll come to this depends on store size - whereas a smaller store will have limited ethnic selections or none at all a larger one will have considerably more offerings. Of course, grocery store chains here are very regional (with exceptions for mega chains like Walmart and Target) so if a given item is popular in one region you'll see a wider selection at chains in that region, vs maybe only one type/brand of that item at a store chain in another region.
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Nov 5, 2015 23:24
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In Saint Louis it is mostly Schnucks with Dierbergs mixed in. We also have Aldi and Shop-n-Save. I think Schnucks and Dierbergs are pretty interchangeable, not cheap, but sometimes they have good deals, sometimes the same deals (3 meats for $5 each is common). Aldi is where all the cheap produce is at and their seasonal stuff is awesome. Shop 'n Save is where things go to die. Everyone else just goes to Walmart.
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Nov 6, 2015 18:02
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Thanks for answering my regional variation question. I hadn't considered that tastes were so diverse but it makes sense in the context of the offerings various stores I've been to stock. My own neighborhood HEB in san antonio fills a quarter of the bread isle with tortillas whereas the much nicer world market heb by my folks in houston has less tortillas and other "mexican people" foods. It's the one reason I don't literally turn green in envy whenever I shop at their place, when I visit. Better everything else but no bolillos!
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Nov 7, 2015 14:23
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MikeCrotch posted:Do the big chains specialise at all depending on what part of the country you are in? Yeah, it's based on the racial/ethnic makeup of an area. If you live somewhere with a lot of Asian and Latino people for example (such as the SF Bay Area, where I'm at) and go to say, Safeway, the "asian" and "latino" sections will be larger, and have a lot more imported food from mexico, taiwan, korea, japan, etc, when compared to a Safeway store in a lily-white area. The produce section will also have a good assortment of peppers, cilantro, etc.
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Nov 10, 2015 06:22
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DeadBlack posted:So-Cal goon, had a vons that was decent but it was devoured by pacific northwest retardation tumor Haggen which swallowed whole 100+ stores across a few western states in its rapid expanse, now in remission back to its tiny coastal home turf it leaves empty furniture liquidated shells where people once got convinent food at un-absurd prices unlit for-lease hollows still warm with the bad blood of their, Haggen's that is, insulting closing store sale. Now I go to ralphs. It's like kroger. Haggen is the only grocery store I've ever been to where I can buy raspberry juice without any other berries mixed in  I live in an area where there are two Haggens literally within a mile of each other. One has been liquidating for a couple weeks and is nearly empty; the other seems to be doing fine. I guess it doesn't really matter; most people in the area just seem to go to the massive Fred Meyer's sandwiched between the two anyway 
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Nov 10, 2015 07:17
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Grew up in Newark, DE, so the supermarkets were things like ShopRite, Shop 'n' Bag, Pathmark, and Acme. There was a Genaurdis that came and went while I was away in Virginia, and my mom used to shop there all the time; I hit them up whenever I was visiting. They did really yummy whole-cooked chickens. I moved to VA for school and was stuck there in a crap marriage for a while in central VA (in an hugely poor town that had terrible supermarkets; we'd drive the 90 miles to Charlotteville to buy food that wasn't spoiled, about to be spoiled, or filthy; Christ I hated living there), then back to Delaware for about ten years before moving to the UK. The closest supermarket to me was an Acme, and since I'd grown up with one, that was my store of choice. My now British-husband, raised on Warner Bros cartoons, was loving thrilled the first time he visited and we stopped at the Acme for a little shop. Then he was disappointed that they didn't actually carry anvils or rocket-powered skates. He still treasures Acme carrier bags from that time. In the UK, Waitrose by default as it's only a five minute drive away, but also swing over to Sainsburys as he's a vegetarian and the closest Sainsburys has a better Quorn selection. The Waitrose here had previously been a lovely Co-op that never had anything properly in stock and wasted a lot of its store space on cheap clothing; half the locals were furious when Waitrose moved in, and the other half rejoiced.
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Nov 15, 2015 12:43
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MikeCrotch posted:Do the big chains specialise at all depending on what part of the country you are in? In the UK you basically don't have any regional variation in the stores you see, it's all the same big brands (Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl) with maaaaaybe a split between Waitrose in the South and Netto in the North. Id say Booths is Northern Waitrose myself...
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Nov 15, 2015 14:44
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In Nova Scotia you can pretty much choose between the Loblaws family of stores (Atlantic Superstore, Save-Easy, Independent Grocer, No Frills) or the Sobeys family of stores (Sobeys, Needs, Lawtons which is a drug store but sells food also for some reason), both of which are national mega-chains. Some towns also have actual independent grocery stores and Halifax had a very cool food co-op for awhile but that went under. Halifax still has Pete's Frootique which is a very upscale boutique grocery store that famously incorporated each of its departments as a separate business in order to circumvent the now-defunct Sunday shopping laws, which would only allow businesses to be open on Sundays if they were below a certain square footage. Loblaws is an Ontario company that has expanded all over the country (I don't know if they have Loblaws-owned stores in the prairies but they're in BC for sure). I think they're the largest grocery chain in Canada. They have a pretty wide range of stores - Superstore is pretty upscale and sells everything from the usual groceries to household essentials like dish- and bakeware to clothes (Joe Fresh brand), and No Frills is exactly what it sounds like: cheap produce and grocery products in bare-bones stores. Sobeys is actually from Nova Scotia, originating in Stellarton and slowly taking over the rest of Canada, which is pretty amazing if you've ever been to Stellarton. They're now owned by Empire Cinemas and also own a whole bunch of other smaller chains like FreshCo and Foodland, and I'm pretty sure they're second to Loblaws in size. Sobeys stores are less fancy than Superstore but still pretty upscale; they also own a convenience store (Needs) and a drug store with a surprising variety of groceries (Lawtons). I wish I preferred Sobeys over Superstore because I feel like I should have loyalty to a Nova Scotian brand but I love PC and No Name products so I shop at Superstore. I did once work as the receptionist for a Sobey-owned property management company and all the Sobeys I met were pretty nice, so that compounds my guilt, but they're all richer than God so I don't feel too bad. Dogfish fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Nov 17, 2015 |
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Nov 15, 2015 20:50
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Ms Boods posted:Grew up in Newark, DE, so the supermarkets were things like ShopRite, Shop 'n' Bag, Pathmark, and Acme. There was a Genaurdis that came and went while I was away in Virginia, and my mom used to shop there all the time; I hit them up whenever I was visiting. They did really yummy whole-cooked chickens. The Newark Pathmark just closed, and though I haven't lived in Newark in 6 years, I am greatly saddened.
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Nov 24, 2015 23:26
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Nathilus posted:Did you just spew a corporate catchphrase? It sure as hell sounds like you did. If so, naughty naughty. There are way too many grocery store chains in NYC to count, but as you might expect, the wealthier and more up-and-coming neighborhoods have better stores than the less expensive neighborhoods. In Bed-Stuy where I live, they renovated the Super Foodtown to the extent where it wouldn't look out of place in the former kind of neighborhood. They even named the aisles for streets in Central Brooklyn. Plus, you can get mixed six-packs of beer.
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Nov 28, 2015 23:08
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EvanSchenck posted:The prices are actually broadly comparable between Fareway and Hy-Vee, and they tend to honor each other's deals and coupons if they're in the same town. The main reason to go to Fareway is the meat department, which is also one of the features they advertise the most. Both Fareway and HyVee have full service meat departments in each store, but the Fareway is almost always better in every way--cheaper, better selection, better service, better quality. Where I am in Minnesota now (close to Iowa) the options are Fareway or HyVee... other than Walmart and locally owned stores. I worked at the local Fareway in the meat dept part time for a bit. I had a lot of fun in the meat dept and learned a bunch of things about different cuts. It's awesome and even the regular prices could beat some sale prices from HyVee. The HyVee carries some things I can't get at Fareway, but Fareway is where I go most of the time. I'm biased though because they treated me well and I know how clean they are too. Also, for fresh ground beef  That stuff is the best!Growing up in western Michigan, Meijer was the place to go. I worked at one of them for a bit in the toy department, too. Living in Phoenix, we would go to either Albertson's or Fry's. The Albertson's on 19th and Northern had a pretty decent meat dept. I'd talk to them whenever we went and it was fun.
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Nov 28, 2015 23:33
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It's burgin' time! 
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I heart bacon posted:Where I am in Minnesota now (close to Iowa) the options are Fareway or HyVee... other than Walmart and locally owned stores. I worked at the local Fareway in the meat dept part time for a bit. I had a lot of fun in the meat dept and learned a bunch of things about different cuts. It's awesome and even the regular prices could beat some sale prices from HyVee. The HyVee carries some things I can't get at Fareway, but Fareway is where I go most of the time. I'm biased though because they treated me well and I know how clean they are too. Also, for fresh ground beef Where in MN now? I've seen a Fareway but never tried it because two HyVees and a Super Target are just as close.
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Nov 29, 2015 01:11
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Just moved from Denver to Houston. The big grocers in Denver are godawful and HEB is the greatest store. So while its a big step back on the craft beer front, we're loving the groceries here. Our HEB has a french trained pastry chef on staff and my wife who is also a trained Baker couldn't believe the dessert quality after she was talked into a free sample. Also Aldi is the bees knees for staples like flour spices and bulk veggies
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Nov 29, 2015 02:46
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carry on then posted:Where in MN now? I've seen a Fareway but never tried it because two HyVees and a Super Target are just as close. South of Mankato by about 30 miles or so. The Fareway is in Fairmont.
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Nov 29, 2015 03:43
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My husband comes from Joliet, IL and they have Walmart, Jewell-Osco, and Aldi's. I love Aldi so much. Jewell is a general purpose grocery store, but gently caress if their prices aren't ridiculous. My brother's in Herndon, VA and they have Harris Teeter's, Lotte (GIANT Korean owned grocery store), and an Indian grocery store by them. For produce at dirt cheap prices, the Lotte is where it's at. They have pretty drat near every Indian vegetable known to mankind, and at rock bottom prices. Oddly enough, the Indian grocery store is pretty decently priced. Harris Teeter's on the other hand, is MASSIVELY overpriced. When we lived in Manhattan's Washington Heights/Inwood area, we had a Fine Fair, a C-Town, and a Key Foods in walking distance. The Key Foods was owned by a local person, and always had the Latino groceries dirt cheap, but everything else expensive. The Fine Fare had occasional sales on things in bulk, but were otherwise overpriced. The C-Town did have decent prices, but the store itself was sketchy as hell. I had much better luck at the tiny little fruit and vegetable stalls that were set up all over the place, as well as little individual produce markets they had every block. Now that we're in Jersey City, by Journal Square, the only major white people grocery store is C-Town. Again, sketchy looking store, reasonable prices, and good selection. Because our neighbourhood is predominantly ... ethnic, there's good prices on things like tahini, olives, loose beans, and occasional great deals on produce. Otherwise, we have better luck going to the individually owned produce markets in different parts of the city. There's a giant Shop Rite about a mile and change away from us, but we only go there when there's a massive sale going on, because it's such a far walk. C-Town is 2 blocks away. The Indian shops (Apna Bazaar, Subzi Mandi, etc) are all along Newark Avenue, which is like a 10 minute walk away.
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Nov 30, 2015 16:56
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dino. posted:Because our neighbourhood is predominantly ... ethnic I think those are the best neighborhoods to shop in since staples like beans and rice are priced well. The local place here has ridiculous prices for beans and rice. Not canned. Dry. WTF? It's the most basic thing ever. I love shopping in Mexican and Korean grocery stores. Quality is usually better and the prices can't be beat. Plus Kim Chi We usually have to drive up to the twin cities to get kim chi, though 
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Nov 30, 2015 21:41
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There's a grocery store here that largely caters to the local hispanic population. It's not terribly convenient for me (and also is next door to walmart so traffic is usually really lovely around there), but drat if they don't have the best tortillas around.
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Nov 30, 2015 22:25
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my darling feet fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Nov 30, 2015 |
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Nov 30, 2015 23:51
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I grew up in the Northeast, specificially the Hudson Valley Catskills, and now live in Boston, MA. Back home, you had ShopRite. Some of them were cleaner and more modern than the others. I worked at one in my early college years. They generally had the best sales, and could yield free turkey around the holiday. Then there was Price Chopper, A& P, and Stop & Shop, which all were expensive. There's Stop & Shops near Boston too, but they're hella expensive. Now where I live, we have Hannafords, Stop & Shop, and Shaws/Jewel. I'll generally shop all their loss leaders/3 day specials and go to Haymarket for veggies (it's a public air market with a weird mixup of produce). I sometimes go back to my mom's for a holiday or whatever, and buy cheap not easily-perishables and haul them home from ShopRite. Of course, you also had Walmart and now Target even has a grocery section. EDIT: Oh yeah, Aldis. That is the place you go for cheap as poo poo, dinged cans and German chocolate. And Sav-A-Lot. More of the same, with less international flavor. And Whole Foods and Trader Joes, but they're kind of a pain to get to. Can't beat bananas that are 19 cents each, or While Foods' rice crackers.
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Nov 30, 2015 23:55
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I just came across this article which has a bunch of maps showing where the big chains are: http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/660-where-the-big-boxes-roam-a-geography-of-american-grocery-shopping For example, Hy-Vee 
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Dec 1, 2015 00:34
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The Safeway/Albertson's comparison is a little misleading in the article: quote:In March this year, Albertsons and Safeway announced their engagement to be merged. This might seem strange, as both are 'western' chains. But they're still quite complementary: Albertsons is present in Florida, Louisiana and Texas, where Safeways isn't. The complementarity is greatest in California, with Albertsons heavily represented in the south, and Safeways in the north. What they fail to mention is that Safeway got out of Southern California by selling all their stores in the area to Vons - and they later bought back the entire Vons chain, keeping the branding. So Safeway had stores in SoCal, but they said Vons on the front. They ended up loving Haggen's in the process of the merger.
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Dec 1, 2015 01:27
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Safeway has stores all over the northern half of Texas called Randall's and Tom Thumb. They're awful and twice the price of HEB.
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Dec 1, 2015 22:21
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