National Supermarket Chains

[Rail Paul]

Publix is publicly traded, and has stores in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee. Lots of them, too. 741 markets.

Royal Ahold, a Netherlands based company, owns: Stop & Shop, Bruno's, Peapod, Giant-Landover, and Giant - Carlisle.

Winn-Dixie is also a regional chain, with most operations in Florida.

Safeway operates the Vons, Pavilions, Genuardi's, Carr's, Dominick's, and Tom Thumb markets.

[Kim WB]

I find it baffling as to the decisions of where to build some of these strores...especially when a Stop and Shop opens and there is another Stop and Shop 3 miles away... Being in Real Estate, and having an above average knowledge of the population and demographics of an area, sometimes I scratch my head and wonder why they are building a store that will just pull from the market that is already happily travelling to the same company's store a few miles away..its like creating your own competition? Sure, I understand market dominance and saturation..but this just seems silly. I know each industry develops a customer radius, that is, an area they expect their market to travel from...anyone know the distance of food stores?

[Jim Dixon]

Is Fiesta national?

Unfortunately, no.

I get my siblings (one in Phoenix, one in Houston) to send me care packages of jalapeno salt and brisket rub.

Jim

[TrishCT]

Kim,

Something similar happened here in Conn, when Grand Union went belly up. Shaw's bought several GU's, red dot and all, but in one town there already was a Shaw's. For a short time both were in operation, then one closed when its lease expired. Sometimes it makes a difference whether or not the store is a tenant rather than an owner.

Edited April 21, 2003 by TrishCT (log)

[jhlurie]

Why has nobody mentioned Wegmans? They're gradually taking over the eastern seaboard, and most people seem happy about it.

To be more accurate, Wegmans is taking over Northwest NY, Central NJ, and certain parts of Pennsylvania. They've been avoiding the Southern part of New York, including New York City, Northern NJ, the area around Philadelphia, the area around Pittsburgh... in other words the areas with big rents and big risks.

So "taking over" might be a bit of an overstatement.

Besides, they only are in three states: NY, NJ and PA, minus those areas mentioned.

[Z28Racer]

I find it baffling as to the decisions of where to build some of these strores...especially when a Stop and Shop opens and there is another Stop and Shop 3 miles away.

I think it depends on the growth in the given area's market. Publix, mentioned by plax and Rail Paul, is basically carpet-bombing southwest Florida (Ft. Myers area). They are locking up sites at the entrance to every new subdivision of any size. There are many of those hereabouts. Since there is a net increase in population, they're being directed to a new store rather than an existing one. It might seem that Publix is taking on the overhead of an additional store, but I'd be willing to bet people will shop more, and more often, if the store is at their doorstep, rather than 15 or 20 minutes away.

Publix has been very savvy with their growth, as has done well in beating back Super Wal-Mart. The conventional wisdom predicted that Publix would take it on the chin, but by maintaining some aspects of a full-service grocery, having better quality products, and many locations, their growth has outpaced Wal-Mart locally. They also tailor their stores to the given site; they can range from just 40,000 to over 125,000 square feet. With flexible sizing, they can locate on a larger range of sites. Wal-Mart, at least here, has a fixed floor plan of about 200,000 square feet, sites for which are getting very difficult to find.

[Marlene]

Safeway has more or less disappeared from Ontario. Of the major supermarket chains there are:

Loblaws

Sobeys (they bought IGA)

A&P (most commonly seen as Miracle Mart and Dominion and the Barn)

Longos is a smaller chain

Differences:

Loblaws tends to concentrate most on their private label President's Choice

Sobeys is more noted for bulk products

A&P and Dominion, thier meats

The Barn - fresh produce

Longo's is smallers as I said, and seems to maintain a higher quality of both meat and produce.

Grocery Gateway, the online grocery store, used to team with Longos for product. I think they found that too expensive because Longo's is more expensive generally than the others. Grocery Gateway now carries Sobey's products.

Edited April 21, 2003 by Marlene (log)

[bilrus]

According to a thread in the DC regional board, Wegman's is opening a store in northern Virginia this year.

I've never been, but our fellow e-Gulleteers have made me excited about it. Our choices here in the DC area are not what they should be, compared with other areas I have lived in.

[Suzanne F]

A&P and Dominion, thier meats

Marlene, interesting you say that. I assume that A&P there is the same as A&P here, which means the same as Food Emporium. And much as I dislike my local FE, their meats are quite good. So that's one characteristic that seems to hold across the board for them (Compass Foods).

[TrishCT]

We have a Super Food Mart nearby... I think that also is an A & P. The giveaway was the Iced Spanish Bar they sell (spice cake). I remember that from A& P when I was a kid.