The Friday Checkout is a weekly column providing more insight on the news, rounding up the announcements you may have missed and sharing what’s to come.
Kroger and Albertsons had hoped to write a powerful new chapter for the grocery industry with an audacious plan to build the nation’s largest supermarket company. But as the retailers have sparred over why the deal failed, the main storyline has centered on why they didn’t try harder to unload stores to satisfy antitrust regulators.
Following their two-week trial last month over Albertsons’ claim that Kroger is responsible for the merger’s demise, the companies’ completely different takes on how their divestiture strategy came — or didn’t come — together remain a central issue for the court to sort out.
On the first day of the trial, former Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran testified that Kroger, which had taken the lead in hammering out the divestiture plan, initially offered to sell far fewer stores than the maximum number the companies had agreed they would be willing to unload to push the deal through. And as Bloomberg Law observed, Kroger had calculated that a lowball figure would be enough even as Albertsons felt the companies should have presented a more robust divestiture plan right away.
Lori W. Will, the vice chancellor of the Chancery Court of Delaware who is presiding over the case, apparently wants a lot more information about how the would-be partners wound up on separate paths almost as soon as they agreed to merge.
According to a report by BoiseDev, Will wants the grocers to provide reams of records that could illuminate how they handled the delicate task of crafting and presenting a divestiture plan to the Federal Trade Commission. That indicates that the outcome of the trial could ultimately come down to which company’s post-trial briefs offer more compelling evidence that its opponent bungled the critical back-and-forth with regulators and each other.
In case you missed it
Schnucks expands savings campaign
The Midwest chain announced Wednesday that it is extending its “Deals for Weeks” campaign into 2027. The savings initiative, which started in February, locks in prices for “high-demand, seasonally relevant” items for eight- to nine-week-long cycles, the grocer said.
In its four promotional cycles so far, the program has featured savings across nearly 2,700 items and prompted strong sales and volume growth across participating categories, Schnucks said.
Ahold Delhaize USA modernizing store tech
ADUSA has started a multi-year rollout of new point-of-sale technology, which is available now in 100 stores. The tech change is part of an effort to modernize store capabilities and builds on other efforts the company has undertaken recently, like the deployment of a proprietary retail media ad platform, the company said.
H Mart expands in Texas
The Asian grocer announced this week further details on its plans to open two stores in Texas — one in Haltom City, and another one in Sugarland. The Haltom City location will feature a food hall with seven vendors, including traditional Korean food and French Asian baked goods. The Sugarland location will have 11 vendors offering cuisine like Korean street food and Vietnamese food.
H Mart’s Sugarland store will open Nov. 19. The company did not list an opening date for the Haltom City location.
Impulse find
Kroger gives thanks … for AI
Thanksgiving is all about bringing people together. But this year, Kroger is taking a decidedly nonhuman approach to helping shoppers celebrate the most popular holiday of the year.
The grocer announced this week that it is encouraging customers to use its AI shopping assistant to plan their holiday dinners, pointing out that the technology can help people simplify shopping trips and customize their menus to reflect the size of their gathering. Kroger added that its Thanksgiving offerings are “centered on convenience, flexible feast sizes and effortless meal planning,” adding that its AI-powered tools can help eliminate “holiday kitchen stress.”
Kroger’s push into AI reflects the rapid rise of the technology in everyday life. It’s also a sign that computer-driven shopping assistants are quickly moving out of the experimental realm — and demonstrates Kroger’s belief that even though AI has a tendency to make things up, the technology will enhance Thanksgiving instead of turning it into just another digital chore.
