Safeway is out. Albertson's is in. (Baker City: bankruptcy, school, quality of life)

[Brynach]

Originally Posted by Rory27

Whats the deal with Winco? It's cash only right?
How does it compare to Walmart or Freds price wise and selection?
Any Fresh food of quality?

I think Winco is right up there with Walmart in terms of prices, but usually better quality. Produce at Winco is way better. And par with Freddies but much cheaper.

The only stores I see with significantly superior products to Winco would be Costco and the organic places like the Co op or Natural Grocers or the Growers mart.

[Brynach]

Originally Posted by pdxMIKEpdx

An example of something that I don't like about Walmart:

I collect old Abu Garcia Ambassaduer fishing reels.
Walmart made a deal with them and while they sell those reels labeled as such, they are manufactured on a more "economical" scale (so Walmart can sell cheaper and still make a profit) and have a letter added to their serial numbers.

An older reel made specifically for Walmart will sell for less than a seemingly identical reel made by Abu Garcia, and it isn't obvious to the casual collector.

Nobody wants a "Made for Walmart" reel in their collection.

They do this kind of stuff with all kinds of manufacturers.

Even potting soil.

[Steve Pickering]

Winco and Wal-Mart have the same sources. Winco sells more closeout and surplus. Rainbow sells mostly overstock, closeout and surplus, but you can get some interesting stuff there. Much of it mislabels, Experimental marketing, or short runs.

[karlsch]

This is an old thread but what has transpired is relevant to Oregon. A grocery store near you may be closing.

Albertsons was allowed to buy Safeway (the stores kept the Safeway name), but in order to prevent a grocery monopoly in certain markets the government required them to sell 146 stores.

In February, Haggen, a small chain with 18 stores in Washington and Oregon bought the 146 stores, including 20 in Oregon. Overnight, they were a large chain with 164 stores in Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada and Arizona. Many thought that this was an extreme, almost impossible management challenge.

One of the stores converted to Haggen was here in Baker City, right across the street from our only other supermarket, a Safeway.

The conversion to Haggen took 36 hours – they put up new signs, many of which advertised “natural” and “organic” products, which aren't in much of a demand here, and installed a few new fixtures. They didn't have time to change the inventory. Since the inventory was the same the “natural” and “organic” signs were meaningless, anyway.

When the store reopened the place was jammed for a couple of days. Unfortunately, the shoppers found that almost all of the prices were higher – a lot higher. Virtually everybody decided to take their business across the street to to the Safeway.

In July Albertsons sued Haggen for $41 million for unpaid inventory.

Our Haggen was still virtually empty so I Googled “Haggen grocery expansion.” I found headlines and stories in major California newspapers that said things like “why isn't anybody shopping at the new Haggen,” “why can you bowl down the main aisle at the Haggen without hitting anybody,” “why is Haggen laying off so many people” and so on. They mentioned the increased prices at all of the stores, that not every market cares about natural and organics, and that the Haggen motto, “Pacific Northwest Fresh” doesn't pull much weight in Southern California.

In August, Haggen closed 27 of their new stores including 5 in Oregon employing more than 300 people.

On Sept 1, Haggen sued Albertsons for $1 billion for sabotaging the sale of the stores. Haggen sues Albertsons, alleging sabotage in store conversions | OregonLive.com
One of the things they claim is it's Albertson's fault that they increased prices which drove away customers!! This is ridiculous. All they had to do is look at the old shelf tags to see what the prices were.

Yesterday Haggen filed for bankrupcy: Haggen files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy | OregonLive.com

The stores are still open, but who knows for how long.

[Hawk J]

That's pretty strange.....

A Winco is being built from the ground up, in Grants Pass, across the street from Walmart & Fred Meyer.

Winco to build Grants Pass store - News - MailTribune.com - Medford, OR

[PNW-type-gal]

Haggen is also suing, saying the the pricing/cost info that Safeway gave them in the store handovers is what led to higher prices - the only way I can make sense out of that is that Safeway overcharged them for stock on hand. Possible, I suppose, but you'd think they'd have done a tad bit of market research prior. Of course, Safeway has always been the highest-priced of the regular stores, even with the member discount.

[oldtrader]

Except for perishable food items, we don't buy from any store.

We buy on line from Walmart.com. We find that we save about 20% overall on a large grocery bill, over buying the same item at a Walmart store.

Example: I can't use sugar so buy Walmart's house brand Equal. In the stores it is $4.95 a package. For the exact same thing, it costs $3.88, and the shipping is free as long as the order is $35 or more. Instead of one can of string beans as an example, we buy a package of 4 cans of Hunt's as an example, and save a bunch of money. Our housekeeper bought a 16 oz. bottle of pure vanilla for $14.95 at Walmart. I bought the exact same bottle through the internet for a third of that price. And this list goes on and on.

To go to Walmart which is much cheaper than our local grocer which won the award as #1 store in the world for their huge association, is a 30 to 50 mile drive depending on which one we go to. That costs $10 $15 for gasoline alone. I can sit at a computer and quickly do our grocery shopping, and they bring it right to our door a few days later. I save $10 to $15 for gas alone plus wear and tear on the car, 1 to 2 hours driving time depending on which store we go to. I save having to walk all over the store getting what I want to buy, I save putting it in the car and having to unload the car as FedEx brings it right to our door. And save about 20% overall in prices which is about $50 on our typical order of about $250. The modern way to shop.

[karlsch]

Reviving an old thread because of an interesting, to say the least, development in Baker City. Like something from The Twilight Zone.

So you don't have to read the whole thread:

In March 2014 the parent company that owns Albertsons proposed to buy Safeway.

In January 2015 the Federal Trade Commission approved the sale with the provision that in order to maintain competition between stores that were close together, 168 would be sold to another grocery chain.

Baker City had two major supermarkets, a Safeway and an Albertsons, literally across the street from each other. The FTC decided that in order to maintain competition, the Albertsons had to be sold.

In February 2015 the FTC approved the sale of 146 stores, including the Albertsons here in Baker City, to Haggen, a small chain with 18 stores in Washington and Oregon. Most experts and most ordinary people, for that matter, wondered how such a small chain could manage such a purchase.

In September 2015 Haggen filed for bankruptcy.

In March 2016 the U.S. Bankruptcy Court approved the sale of 29 Haggen stores to back to Albertsons, including the one here in Baker City.

It appeared that in spite of the FTC's good intentions, we would have a Safeway and an Albertson owned by the same parent conpany, anyway.

So much for the FTC maintaining competition.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!

The corporation that owns Safeway and Albertsons announced that Baker City would not have a Safeway and an Albertsons, it would have two Safeways.

Two Safeways right across the street from each other – you can't make this stuff up.

Article here: Safeway strangeness;

[KaaBoom]

Originally Posted by karlsch

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!

The corporation that owns Safeway and Albertsons announced that Baker City would not have a Safeway and an Albertsons, it would have two Safeways.

Two Safeways right across the street from each other – you can't make this stuff up.

Article here: Safeway strangeness;

They will never keep two stores open right across the street from each other. People will naturally shop at the larger and better of the two stores. The smaller store will just languish and eventually close, probably sooner then later. They may also have a plan to build a new super store to replace both stores. Either way there will be less competition and higher prices.

I can remember one place where I lived in the 1980s, where there were two small old Safeway stores in town. Then Safeway opened a new super store right across the street from their major competitor, and closed both of the smaller stores at the same time. Problem was that the new store had terrible access. It was almost impossible to turn into the parking lot. Then the competitor supermarket immediately responded by tearing down their store and building a brand new super store of their own. That store totally kicked Safeway’s ass, and within six months the brand new Safeway closed and became an indoor flea market, which it still is today. Then there was no Safeway in that area.

I can also think of another case of a Safeway in a smaller town where my family shopped in the 1970s. It was a very small, very old Safeway store. Then they built a new slightly larger Safeway right next door to it. To show you how long ago this was, the new Safeway had six check out stands. Two more then the old store. The weird thing was that both stores continued to operate for a period of time. Two Safeway stores side by side, open for business. But after the hoopla of the new store died down, they quietly closed the old store.

Having shopped at Safeway since I was a kid, I really don’t get what Safeway is trying to do. It seems to me that Safeway used to be a good place to get low prices. But today the Safeway “special” Club Card prices are generally higher then the regular everyday prices at Fred Meyer. What’s up with that? Safeway seems kind of irrelevant to me these days. It looks to me like they are trying to be a crappy version of Whole Foods.

[StealthRabbit]

Fred Meyer makes it very hard to find the bread.

Given our current choices, I do a liittle shopping 1/ month at Winco, produce at QFC (or local produce broker), every other week at Fred's, I use Safeway as a convienence store. Never Albertsons.

We eat on $100/ month, same for 40 yrs. $100 into the food envelope on the first of month. When / if it runs empty.... Get creative.