BC losing traditional, growing International supermarkets

[SamSpade]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british- ... -1.5454735
Sobeys really didn't absorb Safeway very well, did it?

[storewanderer]

Sobeys take of Safeway was a miserable failure. They really messed it up. They downscaled the stores. They put in a very inferior private label program and changed the promotional strategy (less promotions) without cutting the everyday prices.

The solution to downscale the stores to franchise run FreshCo operations with no fresh departments is a major downgrade.

Loblaw probably needs to try to expand more conventional format stores into BC. Save On Foods is not very good either but they are better than the Sobeys run Safeway is.

Sobeys run Safeway kind of reminds me of Supervalu run Albertsons. That bad.

In a sense what is happening in BC reminds me a little of southern California. Also in many BC shopping centers there are small store front bakeries, produce shops, many drugstores with a lot of dry groceries, etc. I can see how the conventional supermarket is becoming irrelevant there.

[retailfanmitchell019]

Sobeys take of Safeway was a miserable failure. They really messed it up. They downscaled the stores. They put in a very inferior private label program and changed the promotional strategy (less promotions) without cutting the everyday prices.

The solution to downscale the stores to franchise run FreshCo operations with no fresh departments is a major downgrade.

Loblaw probably needs to try to expand more conventional format stores into BC. Save On Foods is not very good either but they are better than the Sobeys run Safeway is.

Sobeys run Safeway kind of reminds me of Supervalu run Albertsons. That bad.

In a sense what is happening in BC reminds me a little of southern California. Also in many BC shopping centers there are small store front bakeries, produce shops, many drugstores with a lot of dry groceries, etc. I can see how the conventional supermarket is becoming irrelevant there.

Maybe Albertsons should buy Canada Safeway...

[storewanderer]

Maybe Albertsons should buy Canada Safeway...

That ship has sailed. Sobeys has already destroyed it beyond repair. Dozens of stores have closed. Dozens more have converted to "FreshCo" involving firing all the employees, downsizing, and demolishing all fresh departments. Some locations are still left but at this point they are just damaged beyond repair.

A number of stores converted to FreshCo were actually nicer/larger stores than some of what they have kept open. I am assuming they found smaller stores were more productive with the Safeway banner and kept those open while happily converting 50k sq ft modern stores that did great under the old Safeway over to 20k sq ft FreshCo dives.

Also their private label program- pathetic. I actually think that is a big part of why they failed.

[pseudo3d]

Sobeys take of Safeway was a miserable failure. They really messed it up. They downscaled the stores. They put in a very inferior private label program and changed the promotional strategy (less promotions) without cutting the everyday prices.

The solution to downscale the stores to franchise run FreshCo operations with no fresh departments is a major downgrade.

Loblaw probably needs to try to expand more conventional format stores into BC. Save On Foods is not very good either but they are better than the Sobeys run Safeway is.

Sobeys run Safeway kind of reminds me of Supervalu run Albertsons. That bad.

In a sense what is happening in BC reminds me a little of southern California. Also in many BC shopping centers there are small store front bakeries, produce shops, many drugstores with a lot of dry groceries, etc. I can see how the conventional supermarket is becoming irrelevant there.

Maybe Albertsons should buy Canada Safeway...

Maintaining a Canadian operation, especially one that is a fixer upper, when a company has already cut into its real estate holdings to reduce debt (and already has a bunch of fixer upper divisions as is), will just end in tears. If it really got a point where Albertsons needed to do something about the poor reputation of Canada Safeway affecting the American operations, the cheapest and most cost effective option would be to pay Sobeys not to use the Safeway name anymore.

[storewanderer]

Maintaining a Canadian operation, especially one that is a fixer upper, when a company has already cut into its real estate holdings to reduce debt (and already has a bunch of fixer upper divisions as is), will just end in tears. If it really got a point where Albertsons needed to do something about the poor reputation of Canada Safeway affecting the American operations, the cheapest and most cost effective option would be to pay Sobeys not to use the Safeway name anymore.

I think Sobeys will address that matter on their own. Albertsons won't need to spend a dime. It will do its course. More conversions to FreshCo, more store closures, etc.