09/24/2024

Grocery Chains are Bigger Than Ever

See who runs the stores near you

Tom Thumb in Plano, Texas. Star Market in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Pavilions in Newport Beach, California. Jewel-Osco in Glenview, Illinois. What do these regional grocery chains have in common? They’re all owned by Albertsons, the Boise, Idaho-based company with more than 2,200 locations under about 24 banners.

Over the past 30 years, the traditional supermarket industry shrunk as a handful of big-name grocers acquired their smaller local and regional rivals. Now Albertsons, Aldi (Süd), Kroger and Walmart own a third of all U.S. grocery stores locations, according to a Washington Post analysis of OpenStreetMap location data.

But the marquee companies could further concentrate their dominance: A federal judge in Portland, Ore., is deciding whether Kroger and Albertsons can proceed with a merger in what would be the biggest supermarket union in U.S. history.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.