Compared to typical grocery stores, where even the "fresh" bakery and prepared foods items tend to be prepared off-site and basically just reheated in the store, it's impressive to see all of the on-site production that Eataly has on full display. Obviously beer isn't nearly as interesting to me as the cheese next door was, but it's still cool to see -- plus, beer production smells basically the same as baking bread, so that's a bonus. 😉 I'm guessing the beer is intended for sale in the various in-store restaurants (since I doubt they have an on-site bottling plant), but maybe this area gets set up as a bar sort of thing in the evenings (I visited at 11 in the morning, presumably a bit too early for that).
In-store production is pretty neat given that the nicer Lifestyle Randall's bakeries are probably the closest we come to that in Houston! Well, the pita baking mechanism at Phoenicia Specialty Foods, a Mediterranean supermarket, probably far exceeds anything Safeway does! Link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/KRMXq4eWNJAvgQDs6
ReplyDeleteNow here is some truly shocking news. For a few years in the late 2010s and maybe into the very early 2020s, Kroger, Wal-Mart, and HEB were more or less tied in market share in Houston. Since Kroger hasn't opened a new store here since 2017 and Wal-Mart and especially HEB have opened a lot of new stores, it was not surprising that HEB and Wal-Mart zoomed past Kroger in market share in recent years.
Well, the 2023 Houston market share ratings came out today and, shockingly, Kroger has moved past HEB and Wal-Mart to reclaim the no. 1 spot they've held for most of the last 50 years in Houston. They did this even with the aforementioned lack of opening new stores. I can't really explain how this happened. How did Kroger gain 2.7%? HEB and Wal-Mart both lost about 1.5%. Randall's market share in Houston is just 2.0%, but that's actually up a tenth of a percentage from the previous rating. Link: https://www.axios.com/local/houston/2024/04/24/kroger-heb-market-share
I really can't explain how Kroger managed to pull this off! Kroger is very competitive on pricing here, but they have to be to keep up with HEB and Wal-Mart. Perhaps HEB shoppers tired of over-crowded stores, dodging employees picking online orders with giant carts, and HEB's over-emphasis on store brands are moving back to Kroger. Well, say what you want about modern Kroger, but I'm glad that the austerity stores are finally moving backwards in market share and that a more traditional grocer has moved back into the no. 1 spot. Randall's isn't anywhere near the top-3, but at least they held steady, and actually gained a little bit, when HEB is moving back. I've waited 25+ years for news like this and it was most certainly unexpected! I guess 2023 really was the year of Kroger in Houston and not just on HHR!
Wow, that pita thing is impressive! I've never seen such a large factory-like setup at a grocery store before!
DeleteInteresting! Now I wonder what the ranking would look like for the Seattle area. I imagine Walmart and Safeway would be pretty much flipped from the Houston ranking -- Safeway may well be #1 around here since they have so many stores (though QFC and Fred Meyer combined are pretty big too), while Walmart keeps closing the few stores they have in the Seattle suburbs and retreating to the rural parts of the state. I'm surprised by just how bad Randalls' numbers are!
I would guess Safeway is no. 1in Seattle just due to the sheer number of locations and the fact that they are neighborhood stores in a city where car ownership isn't universal. Kroger probably does well in Seattle though just because Walmart is so weak. It certainly gives Fred Meyer a lot of opportunities, though some of that is non-grocery.
DeleteRandall's is very much a niche grocer here. They have, I believe, 16 stores in the Houston area. That might not sound insignificant, but for a city as big as Houston, that is not much. There are only two in the entire northern half of Houston and the last totally new Randall's location in Houston which is still around opened in I believe 2003 (which were probably the Randalbertsons locations that Safeway picked up when Albertsons left town in 2002).
Having said that, Randall's does still do well in certain areas. They are pretty much the only traditional grocer left in the downtown/midtown area and Randall's seems to do well in older, wealthier parts of town where the shoppers are willing to trade in low prices for a nicer shopping experience. I know you laugh at the idea of this, but Safeway is the luxury supermarket chain around here!
Randall's is still trying to promote a lower price image around here though. They recently put up a prominent billboard (right in front of a Kroger one, oddly enough) near downtown promoting their Just for U system and I think their pricing is a bit more competitive now than a couple of years ago. With all of this, Randall's should be able to hold their market share steady or maybe even make slight progress. I wouldn't expect any miracles though, they'd probably do really, really well if they could get their percentage up to 3 or 4%.
If you think Randall's numbers are shockingly low, Aldi has 30+ locations in Houston and they didn't even score high enough to make the chart!
16 locations does sound like a lot since Safeway only has 14 in Seattle (15 if you count the one Albertsons; their locator shows 16 but that counts two that aren't actually in Seattle), but the actual Seattle city limits are quite small compared to Houston's, and Seattle's population is less than a third of that of Houston (even though the Seattle metro area is well over half the population of the Houston metro area). When you add QFC and Fred Meyer together, they have a similar number of locations to Safeway + Albertsons -- not quite as many, but Fred Meyer's stores are obviously a lot bigger and also tend to be busier than Safeway (though QFC's stores tend to be a lot less popular).
DeleteThere's also Costco in the mix, and they probably have a fairly large market share in the suburbs. Less so in the city itself, since there's only one store and it's really only useful for people with cars, but I'm sure they still do better than Aldi in your area!
I should say that the 16 figure for Houston Randall's stores is for the Houston metro area and not just the City of Houston, but the majority of those 16 are in the city limits or are close to an area within the city limits. The Houston metro area is a bit different than many other cities in that the majority of suburban residents here identify with the city itself even if they don't live in the city limits rather than the suburbs...even with some of the distant suburbs. This is very much different from the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex. Anyway, this is why I often say 'Houston' when I really mean 'Houston metro area', but I know this can be confusing.
DeleteAdding to the confusion is that Texas allows for extraterritorial jurisdiction and so the City of Houston has extended their city limits to certain enclaves which are quite far from what is generally considered the city limits. This is mostly done for sales tax collection purposes. Many of the suburban malls are, thus, City of Houston enclaves so the city can collect sales tax in those areas.
Further adding to the confusion is that there are large developed parts of the metro area which have Houston mailing addresses, but they are not within the city limits. These are just unincorporated areas which are run by whatever county they are in, usually Harris County, but most of the residents in these areas consider themselves to be Houstonians.
Randall's tends to do the best in wealthy older inner suburbs (which are very urbanized by now) which are mostly on the southwest and west sides of Houston. While these are very niche demographics, they are probably quite profitable ones so Safeway's operations here might well be profitable even if they are small. Also, a lot of Randall's stores are in built-out areas with high land prices, by Houston standards at least, so it wouldn't be easy for competitors to try to take on Randall's in those areas. The funny thing is that Safeway and Albertsons' operations in Houston were most certainly not aimed at the affluent during their first go-arounds in Houston!