Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Lidl won't fall by the wayside any more than Aldi did. . . same concept, different family.
Food Lion is failing everywhere, including in their home territory for obvious reasons.
Yeah ok , and Food Lion grew and then blew up and A&P had over 20,000 stores in this country alone and where are they but hey enjoy them while you can .
I see and read the posting the few (and it is very few) of you throw out there and this is yours that makes what you say sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown whaaa,whaa ,whaaaaaaa.
'Whole Food costs like Stop &Shop but has better products .News alert they carry different products they don't think of each other in the same ways, they cater to different clinintel.Now as for you loving bulk bins,these are not new ,not to any grocer ,there a many sanitation problems(and law suits) just as there are problems with salad bars .The costs for both companies is not the same while WF can get away with 1$ for an navel orange S&S can not but to determine what there prices are you need to know what their cost is and who is there supplier and what you will find out is that most of the stores(all of them) are supplied by C&S,they are considered the Walmart of third party supply chain companies in this country and they determine what you are charged by how much business is done with them .They promise you savings but they are the ones delivering product in the NY metro area.
The Mid Atlantic region and New England are also supplied by C&S but many companies also have their own warehouses for fresh product so they can control quality and on time delivery to the stores ,this does not happen in NJ any more most of those warehouses were Union and were shut down,this all affects cost and quality .
Correct me if I'm missing some key insight the business side people have learned, but from what I can tell on the consumer side the clientele for S&S is affluent people shopping for families who live much closer to a S&S than to a Costco, Whole Foods, or Shop-Rite and don't feel like doing the drive. I can't think of any group and have never spoken to anyone on the topic who, if they were next to each-other, would rather go to a Stop & Shop than a Whole Foods. Heck, I grew up in a town with a Stop & Shop -- people drive the next town over to Shop-Rite, a few towns over to Costco, or if they do go to Stop and Shop if you talk to them about it will sound almost guilty about not doing the drive out and complain about how much it sucks. A Whole Foods in the vicinity or a closer Costco would empty the place. If your only selling point to your core clientele is being physically closer to them than other competitors they prefer on all other counts you have a serious problem in the long term.
As for C&S, I did some research after reading your post and that was a really interesting thing to read. So the list of people these guys service is basically like a list of places consumers think offer bad value for money and they helped drive A&P into an earlier bankruptcy. This explains a lot. However, while from a business perspective this all makes a ton of sense, consumers don't care about cost basis they care about what they get and what they pay at the end of the day. If these C&S guys are taking such a large cut that they make the places they serve noncompetitive with others that don't work with them, why not try to make a deal with Wakefern or try to talk someone like Amazon into entering the business or heck even build your own warehouses?
If these C&S guys are taking such a large cut that they make the places they serve noncompetitive with others that don't work with them, why not try to make a deal with Wakefern or try to talk someone like Amazon into entering the business or heck even build your own warehouses?
What I find bizarre is that a company as huge as Royal Ahold--the Netherlands-based owner of Stop & Shop and several other regional chains--doesn't set up their own buying & distribution system. They certainly have the financial resources to be able to do it.
What I find bizarre is that a company as huge as Royal Ahold--the Netherlands-based owner of Stop & Shop and several other regional chains--doesn't set up their own buying & distribution system. They certainly have the financial resources to be able to do it.
They use to but to cut cost they "outsourced it" now it is biting them back on the butt.Many of Aholds companies still have their own fresh warehouses S&S New England ,Giant Food Landover ,Giant Food Carlyle all do ,S&S New York does not .Ahold had been sitting on their money actually the US operations have been covering for bad sales in Europe.They might have waited to long to get involved, the Food Lion merger might help but who knows .Safeway was for sale and they let that slip bye as with Harris Teeter the same thing maybe the new guys there can save it .
They use to but to cut cost they "outsourced it" now it is biting them back on the butt.Many of Aholds companies still have their own fresh warehouses S&S New England ,Giant Food Landover ,Giant Food Carlyle all do ,S&S New York does not .Ahold had been sitting on their money actually the US operations have been covering for bad sales in Europe.They might have waited to long to get involved, the Food Lion merger might help but who knows .Safeway was for sale and they let that slip bye as with Harris Teeter the same thing maybe the new guys there can save it .
Quote:
Originally Posted by Retriever
Royal Ahold (love the name! ) can't make a profit on their own home continent?
What does that tell you about their management?
Nothing good. That said, that kind of shuffling around of cash also explains the high prices for the mediocre food and service here -- they're filling a need for cash across their entire operations by raising prices without providing better food or shopping experience and the damage to their reputation and shrinking of the customer base here are a problem for tomorrow.
Honestly thanks G1 for the insight you've provided; I've always wondered why the traditional groceries in NJ and especially S&S were so much worse than everywhere else in the country I've been and with two large corporations sucking out rents at both distribution and retail now and the third party players being now-defunct formerly union shops it's a lot more understandable.
They use to but to cut cost they "outsourced it" now it is biting them back on the butt.Many of Aholds companies still have their own fresh warehouses S&S New England ,Giant Food Landover ,Giant Food Carlyle all do ,S&S New York does not .Ahold had been sitting on their money actually the US operations have been covering for bad sales in Europe.They might have waited to long to get involved, the Food Lion merger might help but who knows .Safeway was for sale and they let that slip bye as with Harris Teeter the same thing maybe the new guys there can save it .
Wow. I didn't know Food Lion's parent company (Delhaize) and Royal Ahold were merging... but it makes sense.
I had family that lived in Florida for many years. When they lived in Jacksonville, there was a Food Lion near their home. It was filthy, run down, sold poor quality food, and a whole lot of crazy people shopped there... but it was cheap.
Now, Food Lion seems to have opened or remodeled a lot of stores, while raising their prices quite a bit. But, while the packaging has gotten fancier, the quality of the offerings seems to be similar to what it was before (for a lot more money).
In other words, the chain's a perfect match for Stop & Shop. The operations of the two supermarket seem to be very similar these days.
Nothing good. That said, that kind of shuffling around of cash also explains the high prices for the mediocre food and service here -- they're filling a need for cash across their entire operations by raising prices without providing better food or shopping experience and the damage to their reputation and shrinking of the customer base here are a problem for tomorrow.
Honestly thanks G1 for the insight you've provided; I've always wondered why the traditional groceries in NJ and especially S&S were so much worse than everywhere else in the country I've been and with two large corporations sucking out rents at both distribution and retail now and the third party players being now-defunct formerly union shops it's a lot more understandable.
One thing I will say is don't blame this on the Unions .Actually the really big American grocers are Union and doing ok .(Kroger ,Albertsons)
So, are all food retailers in Europe operating at a loss?
If not, then clearly the problem lies not with the Euro, but with the "Aholds" who are running Royal Ahold.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Now as for you loving bulk bins,these are not new ,not to any grocer ,there a many sanitation problems(and law suits) just as there are problems with salad bars .The costs for both companies is not the same while WF can get away with 1$ for an navel orange S&S can not but to determine what there prices are you need to know what their cost is and who is there supplier and what you will find out is that most of the stores(all of them) are supplied by C&S,they are considered the Walmart of third party supply chain companies in this country and they determine what you are charged by how much business is done with them .They promise you savings but they are the ones delivering product in the NY metro area.
) can't make a profit on their own home continent?
