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.”
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.
In Portland Oregon, I’ve got these two choices, then a local chain that’s much smaller and much more expensive… and a coop that’s also quite expensive.
So for semi-reasonably priced food, it’s either Kroger or Albertsons.
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
Kroger owns so many other grocery chains that I kind of assumed Albertson’s was already one.
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.
I used to live in Denver and it was King Soopers there. Where I live now there aren’t any Kroger stores but there is an Albertsons on every other block and I felt like IMO King Soopers was better so I wasn’t concerned about it. But WA state is absolutely right when the 2 are actually in competition with each other, it’s a bad move to allow it. I felt that way when Albertsons and Safeway merged because they were basically the only stores in town. They ended up being required to sell the Safeway stores here, they weren’t allowed to acquire them.
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.
Huh, so they might do that in some places. What I meant is that I’m not familiar with them doing things like operating comparable stores in the same area. I guess I recall QFC vs. Fred Meyer from when I lived in Portland, and QFCs were small while Fred Meyers is set up like Target - large selection of non grocery items, and huge stores. In Colorado they have City Markets (small) and King Soopers (large) but City Market is up in small towns in the mountains and Western Slope, none in Denver, and King Soopers is all over Denver, none afaik in the smaller cities.
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
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?
Trust Bust that shit.
