Even the smaller signs are specially branded, and the phrase "Haggen Quality Drop Off" sounds like an apt description of what happened after they tried to buy all those old Albertsons/Safeway stores! But that sentiment belongs with some of the other Haggen stores I've shown you -- my visit to this store, with its much-improved decor and superior products to what regular Safeways sell, really made me feel like I was back in the old days of Haggen and (for the first time in many, many years) optimistic for their future. Now we just have to hope that they won't be collateral damage in another massive grocery merger.
Hopefully Washington's legal challenge of the merger might be enough to cause the merger to fall through. The fact that the parties involved are taking more time might mean that they are willing to divest more stores, which might make the merger more likely to happen, but there are many hurdles to overcome and the biggest one is, of course, the legacy of the Haggen divestments from a decade ago. Albertsons recently reported good quarterly results so it would really be a shame for the merger to happen now when it seems Albertsons is quite capable of standing on their own if investors want to keep Albertsons alive. A lot has changed since 2022 when the merger was announced so hopefully something will put an end to the merger.
ReplyDeleteOn a related topic, the prescription management company my health insurance from my employer used at the start of the new year to Express Scripts and the Kroger pharmacy does not take Express Scripts even though CVS, Walgreens, Randall's, HEB, and Walmart all do. I'm not sure how the merger would affect that, but it wouldn't surprise me if Randall's would no longer take the insurance after the merger. All the more reason to be against the merger! Express Scripts is pretty popular so this could affect a lot of people who use the Randall's and other Safeway/Albertsons pharmacies.
Washington stepping in makes me a little worried that the FTC might be asleep at the wheel on this one, but it's also possible that our attorney general is doing it to score political points, or because Washington is legitimately going to be one of the places most affected by the merger. Fingers crossed, regardless!
DeleteUgh, the whole pharmacy insurance thing is such a nightmare. My insurance is through Aetna, which is owned by CVS, so they keep threatening to limit prescriptions to being filled at CVS only. Thankfully they haven't done that yet, since it would be a nightmare with how few CVS locations there are around here!