SN Top 10: This will be the deciding factor in the Kroger, Albertsons merger top the week’s headlines

In this week’s recap of the Top 10 most popular Supermarket News articles, 5 things: This will be the deciding factor in the Kroger, Albertsons merger ranked as the week’s top story. Grocery operators frequently check the websites and promotions of rivals and send managers to walk through the stores of competitors to get a sense of what shoppers will pay for various items. It’s a normal practice, but these tactics have caught the eye of the FTC lawyers seeking to block the looming $20 billion merger between Kroger and Albertsons, the respective largest and second-largest U.S. supermarket chains by sales.

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In other news, prior to choosing C&S Wholesale Grocers as its divestiture partner in its proposed acquisition of Albertsons, Cincinnati, Ohio-based Kroger considered offers from dozens of other parties, and two of them appear to be Aldi and Save Mart. Kroger and Albertsons attorneys revealed in a post-hearing brief, filed in the District Court of Oregon on Sept. 27, that 92 parties initially expressed interest in purchasing the divested stores — 72 of those unnamed entities were strategic buyers and 20 were financial buyers.

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