Stop & Shop Strike Vote

[marketreportblog]

And the bad news for Stop & Shop just keeps coming. Newsday reported this morning that Stop & Shop employees on Long Island voted to authorize a strike -- they are not on strike yet -- and among the sticking points are automation and AI. The employees in question here are in the meat, seafood, and deli departments, and I believe some in bakery (but I don't believe this represents all the employees across all the stores). My guess is that this is prompted in large part by Stop & Shop's removal of the in-store butchers/meat cutters a few years ago. My guess is also that Stop & Shop can't afford another large strike, but this is very significantly smaller than the 2019 strike. While reporting is slim, it looks like this is limited to just the Long Island and New York City stores (68 in total). Even though it's very small geographically, if any strike happens (which, of course, is not guaranteed), it could threaten Stop & Shop's very strong performance on Long Island.

In other news, Stop & Shop opened a beautiful new-build store in Boston today, replacing an older Super Stop & Shop-era store on the same property.

[storewanderer]

And the bad news for Stop & Shop just keeps coming. Newsday reported this morning that Stop & Shop employees on Long Island voted to authorize a strike -- they are not on strike yet -- and among the sticking points are automation and AI. The employees in question here are in the meat, seafood, and deli departments, and I believe some in bakery (but I don't believe this represents all the employees across all the stores). My guess is that this is prompted in large part by Stop & Shop's removal of the in-store butchers/meat cutters a few years ago. My guess is also that Stop & Shop can't afford another large strike, but this is very significantly smaller than the 2019 strike. While reporting is slim, it looks like this is limited to just the Long Island and New York City stores (68 in total). Even though it's very small geographically, if any strike happens (which, of course, is not guaranteed), it could threaten Stop & Shop's very strong performance on Long Island.

In other news, Stop & Shop opened a beautiful new-build store in Boston today, replacing an older Super Stop & Shop-era store on the same property.

If the strike impacts 68 of the best stores it could be a huge problem for the chain. However meat, seafood, deli, and bakery, what percentage of total sales might these departments actually be? How difficult would it be to move these to 100% prepack temporarily... The issue of customers crossing picket lines to shop is a potential issue as well as if other unions like the cashiers, grocery, produce, etc. employees also strike in solidarity.

Maybe they can sell it to C&S.