urbanSTL

^ not gonna lie, i'm not a fan of King Soopers. dumbest name ever. Food Lion is another one in the Southeast that would be a good fit for St. Louis. bonus: their name and logo are awesome. personally, i'm a Wegmans convert these days. they're based in NY state but have been expanding southward.

St. Louis also had Kroger and National into the 90s when the population had dropped below 400K. National went out of business, I think (though there's a Canadian chain with the exact same logo) and Kroger left—not sure why.

sc4mayor wrote: ↑

Jun 16, 2021

^ National was owned by the Canadian company Loblaws until 1995 when they sold the St. Louis and New Orleans divisions to Schnucks, who immediately sold off the New Orleans stores.  National's logo is Loblaws logo upside down.

After Schnucks acquired them they had to sell off 24 stores for anti-trust reasons.  Some guy from Illinois bought them and kept them open under the National name but couldn't compete with Schnucks and the last one was closed by 1999.  Turns out he purchased the stores with money embezzled from 183 people...went to jail for 40 years and doesn't get out until 2036.

Kroger left in '86 due to "profitability issues"...their 50 or so stores were bought up by Schnucks, National and Shop 'n Save.  A&P left in the '70s...but I don't know why. (Ed. After a little more research it seems by the time the '70s rolled around A&P was struggling hard mainly because they hadn't kept up with modern stores like their competitors.  So they closed hundreds of older stores and exited several markets, that may be why.  A&P is actually gone now...which is kind of amazing.  They had over 15,000 stores at their peak.)

wow! thanks for doing the research. that's right... Loblaws. i investigated it a while back but promptly forgot. i thought Kroger had stuck around longer, but the 80s and 90s are kind-of a blur. i do remember when Schnucks bought National as they closed the National right by our house at Gravois and New Sugar Creek in Fenton, and the one at Grand and Chippewa near where my grandparents lived.

^Dominion was also part of A&P until they sold off all of their Canadian chains.

A&P was everywhere when I was a kid. It seemed like every small town had an A&P.  I think a lot of those towns still had them until just a decade or so ago, and I suspect for many of them, it was the only store they had left not attached to a gas station. But the Great Recession killed off A&P. That and the fact they took on too much debt right before it. 

Fascinating that A&P was the largest grocery chain in the New York area, and second largest in Philly in 2007, after they acquired Pathmark. They were so big they had to sell off stores in both markets over monopoly concerns. And now they are defunct.

A&P declared bankruptcy two or three times to close stores, trim their debt and reorganize, but finally shut down in late 2015...

The grocery chain I'd be most excited to see hit the STL market would be a Publix.  The crown jewel of southern groceries.

Out of curiosity, where did Liberty fit into all of this history? I remember them from when I was a kid. The Florissant store on Lindbergh became a Schnucks when Liberty left. The only thing I can find online is a news story about the opening of a store on Chippewa in 1961 that says they were a Memphis based company. Liberty doesn't even have a wikipedia page that I can find. Did they get bought out completely by Schnucks at some point?

The trend I think you're seeing in grocery competition is that the "mid market" user is being squeezed out entirely and replaced with the national niche grocers - Sprouts, Fresh Thyme, Natural Grocers - or the discount grocers like Aldi or Ruler. Save-A-Lot is designed to fill that void, but I don't see many people seeking them out to shop.  I think there's a reason that Shop N Save floundered around between different owners for years before finally being put down.

Most of the moderate sized independents in markets I'm familiar with that offer full deli, bakery, prepared food, etc seem to cater to upscale crowd like Metropolitan Market in Seattle or Lund & Bylery's in Minneapolis. Basically Straubs and to a lesser extent Fields Foods here. Amazon Fresh is still a wild card. They're rolling out a handful of new stores in Chicago.

Hy-Vee is one of the few larger chain stores that I wouldn't be surprised to see try to get into the market. They already have a presence in most of the state so it wouldn't be completely foreign. Although buying up some Shop N Save locations would have been a natural move if they wanted in.  If Ruler Foods has any success here, Kroger might push that as their local concept.

jbacott wrote: ↑

Jun 15, 2021

BellaVilla wrote: ↑

Jun 15, 2021

jbacott wrote: ↑

Jun 15, 2021

STL's playing field is pretty similar to most major markets. Most of the market share is dominated by Walmart and two major grocery chains. Boulder was mentioned above but what about it's big brother Denver which is about equal in population to STL? King Soopers (Kroger) has over a third of the market followed by Walmart, Safeway, Target and Costco. 

I'd say the St. Louis market is readily distinguishable from Denver. Denver's top 5 grocers are mid market grocers and all have at least 9% of the market share (albeit difficult to classify Walmart).  In St. Louis, only 3 of our top 5 are mid-market. 

https://www.axios.com/king-soopers-reig ... 0bd9c.html

https://www.stltoday.com/online/st-loui ... 158aa.html

I guess I'm not entirely understanding your definition of "mid market grocers".

Stores in between discount (i.e. save-a-lot, ruler, Aldi) and high end or specialty (i.e. Whole Foods, Traders Joes, Straubs etc.)

jbacott wrote: ↑

Jun 16, 2021

Amazon Fresh is still a wild card. They're rolling out a handful of new stores in Chicago.

New stores have opened or coming soon in DC, Atlanta, and Philly too. And they are shopping for space in every major market, even St. Louis.  They are just being very quiet about it, i.e. making everyone involved sign NDAs.

 I would not be at all surprised if they are opening 100+ stores a year starting in 2022.

urbanitas wrote: ↑

Jun 16, 2021

Has anyone on here tried Wal-Mart grocery delivery? Not trying to promote WM, but ~$90/year gets you unlimited free, no-minimum-order deliveries for groceries and shipping. Their prices are so low you easily make that $90 back with just monthly deliveries vs. in-person shopping at Schnucks et al.

We have. My partner signed up for it, and he ordered his first order of non perishable items.  He was happy, and delivery was pretty easy.

Looks like Walmart delivery is not available in downtown. I tried their grocery pickup during the pandemic at two Metro East locations and it was pretty awful. They were out of a bunch of produce and made nonsensical substitutions, even after I had spent time choosing preferred substitutes.

So many of these grocery delivery services can be pretty useless a big percentage of the time when your shopper says they're out of 10 different things and the online inventory system is useless.

Imperfect Foods is the current recipient of a big chunk of my household's grocery dollars. They seem to be able to keep track of their inventory, which is probably the biggest key for me.

urbanitas wrote: ↑

Jun 16, 2021

jbacott wrote: ↑

Jun 16, 2021

Amazon Fresh is still a wild card. They're rolling out a handful of new stores in Chicago.

New stores have opened or coming soon in DC, Atlanta, and Philly too. And they are shopping for space in every major market, even St. Louis.  They are just being very quiet about it, i.e. making everyone involved sign NDAs.

 I would not be at all surprised if they are opening 100+ stores a year starting in 2022.

From March: https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local ... 031c447bbc

-RBB

^ i believe there's one in Fenton at the Gravois Bluffs strip mall.

There's also the National-->Shop n' Save--->Schnucks in Ferguson.

dweebe wrote: ↑

Jun 22, 2021

Outside of Maplewood, are there any other old Shop n Saves > Schnucks that are still open once the one on the Shrewsbury/City line closes next week?

Schnucks will still operate 10 of the 19 Shop n' Save stores they acquired after the Shrews location is closed. Here's the list of the full 20 they acquired, one of which was a pharmacy only location: 

• 721 Homer M. Adams Parkway, Alton
• 800 Carlyle Ave. Belleville
• 34 Berkshire Blvd., East Alton
• 2122 Troy Road, Edwardsville
• 1900 East Edwardsville Road, Wood River 
• 1253 Water Tower Place, Arnold 
• 7909 State Highway N, Dardenne Prairie 
• 45 Gravois Bluffs Plaza, Fenton
• 1275 North Truman Blvd., Festus
• 2183 Charbonier Road, Florissant
• 1032 Lemay Ferry Road, Lemay
• 3740 Monticello Plaza, O'Fallon, MO 
• 1421 Mexico Loop Road East, O'Fallon, MO 
• 10634 St. Charles Rock Road, St. Ann
• 60 Harvester Square, St. Charles 
• 9070 St. Charles Rock Road, St. John
• 7057 Chippewa St., Shrewsbury 
• 5780 South Lindbergh Blvd., St. Louis
• 100 Jungermann Road, St. Peters
• 500 West Highway 50, Union

Eckert's is opening a their seasonal popup location in Rock Hill, where the former Lucky's was.  It's just a 3 month lease, but still good to see them continuing to have a summer location.  In years past they've opened up shops in Manchester and Sappington. 

https://www.kmov.com/news/eckerts-farm- ... c7d1d.html

eee123 wrote: ↑

Jun 17, 2021

Looks like Walmart delivery is not available in downtown. I tried their grocery pickup during the pandemic at two Metro East locations and it was pretty awful. They were out of a bunch of produce and made nonsensical substitutions, even after I had spent time choosing preferred substitutes.

I know they deliver to Downtown West.  Maybe try selecting the Maplewood or Shrewsbury stores.  Those are both Superstores, and will have much better selection and larger inventory than the Metro East stores (and probably better quality and service as well).

Also, everything was complete chaos early in the pandemic, at every retailer.  I order for some elderly relatives, and Wal-Mart's delivery service has improved tremendously over the last year.  The only things that they still seem to have difficulty delivering consistently are liquor in glass bottles and eggplants...?