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.”
Trust Bust that shit.
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.
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
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.
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.
There is a very serious problem with 1 grocery chain having a monopoly and Kroger pretty much does in some areas.
Kroger has already ruined enough Washington retailers. They need to stay away from Safeway & Albertsons.
It’s probably an issue all over, and I hope it gets blocked, for the sake of consumers. Kroger acquired a company called Roundy’s which has a chain called “Pick N Save” in Wisconsin back in 2015. I remember shopping there after and seeing additional tags with products’ prices announcing the “Your New Low”, but prices were higher than pre acquisition. I stopped shopping there after that and noticing a decrease in product/brand diversity.
I actually saw this exact same thing happen to of all things, an older Kroger store. They closed the store and revamped the building as a new Harris Teeter. Same location and customers, but the prices were higher than previously, and the other competition nearby. The selection was also far worse. Many of the old employees went to other stores, so
I’m guessing the wages took a similar dive.
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?
