Safeway in Alamosa is on a list of stores that Albertsons would sell under its anticipated merger with Kroger Co., according to a divestiture list released Tuesday by the companies. The store in Monte Vista is not on the list. Neither store is scheduled to close.
A third player in the deal is C&S Wholesale Grocers, which as part of the divestiture plan would acquire 579 stores and other assets from Kroger’s national network of chains, and as part of that plan C&S would acquire 91 stores that Albertsons owns in Colorado.
Kroger and Albertsons have pledged to federal regulators that no stores would close under the merger and the sale of stores to C&S Wholesale Grocers would assure that.
What’s next:
There is still a way to go before any merger happens and any transition with the Safeway in Alamosa occurs. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has moved to block the merger, as has the attorney general in the state of Washington. The Federal Trade Commission has expressed concern on whether C&S Wholesale Grocers is strong enough to operate competitive grocery stores, and a coalition of United Food & Commercial Workers local unions is fighting the plan.
Why it matters:
Safeway in Alamosa has been around forever and creates competition for City Market, owned by Kroger and unaffected by the proposed merger except possibly to get even improved through the merger. C&S Wholesale Grocers is, as the name suggests, a wholesale grocery and supply chain provider through its warehouses in the Midwest, South and Northeast. Its role in the Kroger-Albertsons merger would bring a new player into the Colorado grocery business.
The Kroger-Albertsons merger was first announced by the companies on Oct. 14, 2022. Stay tuned. The release of the Planned Divestiture Store location list is the latest information.