In the parts of Los Angeles where I travel, I have my choice of seven supermarket chains: Vons, Ralphs, Gelson's, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Albertsons and Jon's. I rarely go to Jon's. They carry very few of the items I routinely purchase and the ones they do carry are all available at Vons, Ralphs, Gelson's and Albertsons.
I occasionally pop into Trader Joe's and Whole Foods for items I cannot get elsewhere. I'm not wild about either. Trader Joe's, of course, has its corporate policy of discontinuing any item that I try and like. As for Whole Foods, a friend of mine once likened any of their products to a hooker you take home only to discover she's not as healthy as you thought and waaaay overpriced.
So I mainly shop Vons, Ralphs, Gelson's and Albertsons. Each has a few items I want but cannot get at the others. I shop at them in rotation and when I'm in each, I stock up on the things that only they carry.
One evening earlier this year, I decided to drive to the nearest Albertsons and get the things I can get at all four of the markets in my rotation plus the items I can only get at Albertsons. Included in the latter category are Hormel Roasted Chicken Breasts and Hormel Roasted Sliced Turkey, both in gravy, both in handy pop-it-into-the-microwave packages. I like these and the other local markets don't carry them.
I drove over to the market, snagged a shopping cart on my way in and began filling it. I had just picked up my Thomas' English Muffins (the original kind) and was looking for my favorite peanut butter when I noticed something odd. The employees were all wearing green aprons and/or shirts with a logo that did not say "Albertsons."
I went up to a gent who was neatening shelves and said, "May I ask you a question?"
He said, "Sure."
I said, "Where am I shopping?"
He said, "This is now a Haggen."
I asked what a Haggen was and the man explained to me that Haggen was a market chain that was well-represented in other states. Albertsons had closed or sold off about half their stores and Haggen seized the opportunity to buy a lot of them and instantly establish itself in Southern California.
I later did a little research and learned more. The Albertsons corporation is merging with the Safeway company, which owns Vons and another Southern California chain, Pavilions. Federal regulators said they would not approve said merger until those chains had divested themselves of many of their stores. Haggen swooped in and paid $1.4 billion for those stores.
In the Haggen store that evening, I had an immediate worry: Did they still carry the Hormel Chicken Breasts and Sliced Turkey? I asked the man in the green apron what had changed besides the name…
"Really nothing," he said. "There's a new sign outside. We have new aprons and uniforms. There's a new name on our shopping bags. That's about it. Everyone who was working here before the change is still working here." My subsequent exploration of the market would confirm that: Everything in the same place. They even still carried Albertsons brand milk and Albertsons brand potato salad and Albertsons brand rotisserie chickens. I was pushing an Albertsons shopping cart, though I would later notice some of them said Haggen on them.
"What's going to change?" I asked the man. He said, "We don't know. Haggen hasn't set up its supply chain yet. I mean, if they want other things on the shelves, they have to have warehouses and trucks and such. The same food is still coming to us on all the same trucks."
I went about my marketing, purchasing all the items I'd intended to purchase, including half-a-dozen each of the Hormel entrees. I recall fretting a bit that I might not be able to get them there or anywhere once the Haggen folks completed their makeovers of their new acquisitions. As it turns out in yesterday's news, I had more reason to fret than I imagined…
Haggen Inc. is leaving California after a dramatic expansion gone wrong forced the grocery chain to file for bankruptcy protection this month. The Bellingham, Wash., company said Thursday that it is closing all its stores in the state as part of a larger exit of its Pacific Southwest holdings, including in Arizona and Nevada. That would affect at least 100 outlets, with 67 in California. That follows the closure of 27 stores announced last month, including 16 in the Golden State.
Mark doesn't get this. The Albertsons/Safeway folks sell off a bunch of their stores. Presumably, they got rid of the least profitable locations. Haggen grabs them up, changes nothing but the name, does little or no advertising (I've certainly heard/seen none) and then something like eight months later, they're closing them all. What were they expecting?
The Haggen folks would probably say they could have made a go of their new stores but they've been sabotaged by the Albertsons/Safeway company. The two firms are suing each other — Haggen suing Albertsons, charging "systematic efforts" to eliminate Haggen as a competitor; Albertsons suing Haggen for non-payment of $41 million to cover inventory it acquired in the new stores.
Okay, maybe one or both sides' lawsuits have merit, I don't know. I just don't understand how you acquire a business, change nothing but a name (which has, insofar as I can tell, a lot of good history) and then declare the whole thing a failure.
And to be honest, I'm not spending a lot of time trying to understand that. I have more important things to think about…like where I'm going to buy my Hormel Roasted Chicken Breasts and Hormel Roasted Sliced Turkey. Sometimes, life is really tough.