The 2002 closure of the Fred Meyer grocery store serving Rockwood was a blow to the Gresham neighborhood, leaving a hole in its center and one less option for groceries.
The next hit came in 2015, when a merger between the Albertsons and Safeway brands resulted in the closure of a Safeway store nearby. That left an Albertsons store as the last chain supermarket in the area.
Now, a proposal from Kroger Co. to buy Albertsons has residents wondering if that store could end up shuttered, too. If Albertsons were to close in Rockwood as a result of the merger, it would “put a dent in the community,” said Catherine Nicewood, president of the neighborhood association, though it’s one of the most expensive options remaining.
“Rockwood is considered a food desert, and we’ve been trying to bring in places where people could easily access healthier food options at an affordable price,” Nicewood said. Losing the Albertsons would be one more setback.
The $24.6 billion sale would put Albertsons, Safeway, Fred Meyer and QFC under one corporate umbrella, and leave the chains with dozens of Oregon stores that could now be considered redundant.
The Oregonian/OregonLive identified roughly 33 Kroger and Albertsons-owned stores across the state that sit within a mile of one another, including 20 in the Portland metro area. More than 100 are less than two miles apart.
Many are within line-of-sight of a neighboring store. In Oregon City, for example, a Fred Meyer, Safeway and Albertsons are within blocks of one another.
Albertsons and Kroger in Oregon
Dozens of Oregon grocery stores owned by Kroger Co. (Fred Meyer and QFC) and Albertsons Cos. (Albertsons and Safeway) are located near other stores and could be considered redundant if the chains merge. Here, stores are shown with a 1-mile buffer.
Kroger and Albertsons are two of the state’s biggest grocery chains, with 171 stores altogether.
Kroger and Albertsons would likely have to divest hundreds of stores nationally to ease anticompetitive concerns from regulators including the Federal Trade Commission, according to retail analysts and consumer advocates.
Anticipating this, Kroger and Albertsons said in an announcement last week that they’re willing to divest between 100 and 375 locations by spinning them off into a separate company — called SpinCo in the filing — that would be controlled by Albertsons shareholders.
In Oregon, Kroger and Albertsons are two of the biggest grocery chains, with a combined market share that’s even bigger than Walmart.
Kroger didn’t address potential store closings in its filing with the Securities Exchange Commission, but it’s common to shutter stores during a large retail merger, according to retail analysts. Spinning off the redundant stores isn’t a surefire solution, either.
Following the 2015 merger of Albertsons and Safeway, regulators required the chains to find a buyer for about 20 stores in Oregon in a bid to keep the market competitive.
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