Coborn's to buy Rainbow Foods? (St. Cloud, Mankato: buying, pharmacy, to live)

[westWI]

I've been hearing rumors that Coborn's is thinking about buying Rainbow Foods so they can completely enter the Twin Cities market, rather than just being on the out skirts. Has any one else heard this?

I guess Coborn's wants to expand their business so that they can take down Supervalu's Cub Foods as Minnesota's leading grocery store.

[Radical_Car]

Won't surprise me at all, they bought the St. Cloud Cub Foods and turned them into Cash Wise foods And I had a teacher tell me they own the Byerly's in St. Cloud... so it won't surprise me at all.
But the Cub Foods in St. Cloud were nice, and now they look terrible that they repainted the insides and everything, and they're prices are higher now. I remember before they announced they were converting to Cash Wise and I noticed they were painting the walls, and I was wondering what they were doing, and I thought it looked atrocious. I heard someone on here refer to Cash Wise as Ghetto Wise, and well the store looks like a ghetto compared to Cub. Cub Foods employee uniforms were nicer, and Also the signs they put up outside also look terrible, I know i'm nitpicking... but Cub Foods is better, WAY better. The Coborns in St. Cloud prices are even higher then Cash Wise, which is funny because there the same company, so I pretty much never go there. I wanted some swiss cheese slices when I went into Coborns once, they had the imitation swiss cheese garbage for like under 2 dollars, or some fancy stuff for 5 bucks. Cash Wise has some decent real cheese slices for 2-3, which coborns didn't carry... Very frustrating. We got Coborns/Cash-Wise, a single Byerlys, Aldi, and now the Walmart Supercenter in St. Cloud, WHAT a great selection of grocery stores! Mankato is lucky to have Hy-Vee, and they still have their Cub Foods. Lucky ducks.

Hopefully they won't be successful in taking over Cub, and hopefully people are smart enough to support Cub and not Coborns. Local company I don't care, they pretty much have a monopoly on grocery stores in St. Cloud, with Walmart and the teeny Aldi being the only other options, and some places like Target do have grocery sections, it isn't a full fledged grocery store though. There prices are terrible, and are the reason why I always shopped at Cub. I hate it when people say I should be lapping them up because there a local company, blah, but buying out Cub and jacking prices up, and now possibly buying Rainbow out, ya, it sounds like they have it real hard and are really struggling

And can someone comfirm if they own Byerly's in St. Cloud? I only had one person tell me this and I'm assuming hes correct.

[Minnesota Spring]

Originally Posted by Radical_Car

Mankato is lucky to have Hy-Vee, and they still have their Cub Foods. Lucky ducks.

Hopefully they won't be successful in taking over Cub, and hopefully people are smart enough to support Cub and not Coborns. Local company I don't care, they pretty much have a monopoly on grocery stores in St. Cloud, with Walmart and the teeny Aldi being the only other options, and some places like Target do have grocery sections, it isn't a full fledged grocery store though. There prices are terrible, and are the reason why I always shopped at Cub. I hate it when people say I should be lapping them up because there a local company, blah, but buying out Cub and jacking prices up, and now possibly buying Rainbow out, ya, it sounds like they have it real hard and are really struggling

And can someone comfirm if they own Byerly's in St. Cloud? I only had one person tell me this and I'm assuming hes correct.

Hyvee is the best by far for the price! That is where I shop, but they are just limited to extreme southern Minnesota. They have Hyvee in Missiouri to so I get to go there when I visit relatives vs. super wal-mart or some crap like that. Their bakery and deli beats both Cub and Coborns.

[ozzie679]

Originally Posted by Radical_Car

And can someone comfirm if they own Byerly's in St. Cloud? I only had one person tell me this and I'm assuming hes correct.

No. Byerly's is owned by Lunds.

[ozzie679]

I like shopping at Coborn's. The Coborns are a St Cloud/Sauk Rapids family and in a small town like SC there's going to be some local jealously.

I was never a Cub fan. The Cub bakery and deli were not very good. However, the Coborn's bakery as gone downhill in the last few years. But the veggies are better at Coborns than at Cub.

My favorite grocery store in SC in Byerlys! They are more expensive, but it's a good shopping experience and the bakery is great.

[westWI]

I couldn't stand Cub when it was in St. Cloud mainly because the buildings are depressing. My feelings haven't changed now that they're Cash Wise either. St. Cloud Cubs also paid their employee's crap and was owned by a guy from Wisconsin that flew up once a week to visit the stores.

Coborn's keeps Cash Wise as a separate business which is why they may have more stuff and their deals are different. It's no different than Supervalu charging less for stuff at the Cub stores and then charging more to smaller, independently owned grocery stores in small towns.

It'd be interesting to see if Coborn's would buy Rainbow just to see if they could succeed and grow that big. My guess would be that if they were to take Cub down as number one (SuperTarget is number 2 in the Twin Cities), they would have to do it with the Cash Wise brand. I don't think that Rainbow's are big enough to hold a Cash Wise, but we'll see.

[Radical_Car]

Originally Posted by Minnesota Spring

Hyvee is the best by far for the price! That is where I shop, but they are just limited to extreme southern Minnesota. They have Hyvee in Missiouri to so I get to go there when I visit relatives vs. super wal-mart or some crap like that. Their bakery and deli beats both Cub and Coborns.

I been in the Mankato HyVee a million times, though not recently though. It's probably been a few years, and I been to the Marshall one a couple times. Once when my sister and cousin and I went to get groceries for our grandma who lived in Lucan, MN at the time.

Originally Posted by ozzie679

No. Byerly's is owned by Lunds.

I know they're owned by Lund's but my business teacher said the St. Cloud one is owned by Coborns or they bought it or something, hmmm, hes the only person who has ever said it, or maybe I'm remembering something he didn't say, lol.

Originally Posted by westWI

I couldn't stand Cub when it was in St. Cloud mainly because the buildings are depressing. My feelings haven't changed now that they're Cash Wise either. St. Cloud Cubs also paid their employee's crap and was owned by a guy from Wisconsin that flew up once a week to visit the stores.

I know what you mean, but now that they're cash wise, they look even worse. I feel that way about a lot of the buildings in St. Cloud, well maybe not a lot, but some, especially our Best Buy, Gander Mountain, and our old Walmart and Sams Club, and the now closed Circuit City. The ex Sportsmans Warehouse now Ashley Furniture building is great, Barnes and Noble, the mall and so on are all great.

Originally Posted by ozzie679

My favorite grocery store in SC in Byerlys! They are more expensive, but it's a good shopping experience and the bakery is great.

I like the Byerlys too, a lot of my family doesn't though. And their prices aren't as high as people make it seem to be, the way my family talked and some others I have talked to they made it seem like a gallon of milk is 20 bucks.

[sholomar]

hy-vee is the best around here, there aren't any other major competitors besides wally of course, just smaller ones like sunshine foods. Pick N Save (and more recently sendiks) is the best where I used to live.. (eastern WI) in between there must be these stores I'm not that familiar with.

[Radical_Car]

Originally Posted by RandolfK

I guess I'll show my age by saying I can remember when there was only 1 Coborns and that was located in downtown Sauk Rapids.

RandolfK

Haha, thats the nicest Coborns in the area as well, unless the Coborns in Sauk Rapids is a different or newer Coborns.

[knke0204]

I like Coborns. A little more expensive, but they have created a nice niche. Smaller - sized store, usually WITH a convenience store and gas pumps, pharmacy, and video what else do you need? Cub seems to be too big and overwhelming sometimes. Coborns is nice for a quick, easy $20-50 stop with in-and-out type set-up.

I wouldn't go there to buy my monthly supply of groceries, I leave that for Cub or Sam's.