Albertsons consolidates divisions in restructuringAlbertsons consolidates divisions in restructuring

Albertsons announced plans to cut $1.5 billion in spending over the next three years and later this month will lay off nearly 400 Safeway corporate employees—now the grocery chain is reorganizing its corporate structure, according to a story in BoiseDev. 

The news organization reported in early February that the Boise-based grocery chain released an internal memo saying it is combining its Intermountain Division, which covers most of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, with its Denver Division, which covers Colorado and surrounding areas. 

That new division will be known as the Mountain West Division, Albertsons confirmed in an email to Supermarket News.

“As we continue to evolve and enhance our retail operations, a core part of that effort is ensuring our organizational structure properly enables strong local operational excellence across the regions we serve and also leverages our size and scale,” the grocer said. “As such, we recently made some divisional leadership updates, placing some of our best leaders in new roles and providing new opportunities for our team, as we continue to deliver on our strategy to earn customers for life. We are also combining our Intermountain and Denver divisions into a new division called the Mountain West Division, enabling us to operate in new and innovative ways as we serve our customers and communities.”

BoiseDev, which obtained a copy of the internal memo sent out by Albertsons COO Susan Morris, reported that Intermountain Division head John Cosgrove will leave this summer following a 47-year career at Albertsons. 

Todd Broderick, former head of the Denver Division, retired last year in the wake of the failed Kroger/Albertsons merger. In the case brought by the Federal Trade Commission and nine attorneys general from across the country, Broderick, along with Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran, was accused of destroying evidence by deleting texts discussing the merger proposal. 

The FTC provided evidence of a conversation between Broderick and Albertsons Senior Director of Human Resources Scott Shores, showing a one-sided conversation between Shores and Broderick that only included comments from Shores. Broderick’s side of the conversation was nonexistent.

Broderick acknowledged that he might have deleted the texts but did so unintentionally, according to a story published in the Oregonian newspaper. 

Kroger is undergoing its own changes in the fallout of the failed merger. An internal memo obtained by the Cincinnati Business Courier on Monday revealed the grocery chain is laying off 200 corporate employees across three different sites in Cincinnati. 

The nation’s largest traditional grocer acknowledged the layoffs in an email to Supermarket News but gave few details about the restructuring. 

“As we continue delivering fresh, affordable food to our customers, we are focusing on key priority areas that support our go-to-market strategy. As part of this prioritization work, we announced team restructures and a small number of eliminated roles to improve efficiency,” the company said via email.