Supermarket News has a fascinating article on SuperValu. Seven pages long and not a single mention of ACME. Not surprising... ACME rarely gets a mention in any SuperValu news. Seems to be grouped with the Albertsons division, yet any discussion of Albertsons always centers around their west coast stores. You'd think with ACME being number one in the Philly market the company would have a thing or two to say about it. They do not.
The article starts out with discussion on Save-A-Lot but gets really interesting on page 5 under the headline "Protecting Margins". Some really interesting insight into SuperValu's desire for high margins at the cost of market share. Pretty much sums up everything that's wrong with ACME.
Click here to view the article.
Check out the graphic that shows market share for SuperValu's chains. ACME has 18% share in the Philly market with 83 stores. Giant has an 11% share with only 45 stores. ACME's share is down about 10% in the past 10 to 15 years. For some reason ShopRite is not on the list. I had read a while ago that ShopRite was number 2 in the Philly region and was only a few percentage points away from stealing the number 1 spot from ACME.
Well, as stated in the past...even when Acme was American Stores Co. they sent profits to the west coast for major improvements to Lucky and left Acme to rot. Even now as you read, SuperValu has opened Save-A-Lot stores that pull customers AWAY from the Acme banner in many locations. To mind is the South Philadelphia area where SuperValu has opened a few new Save-A-Lot stores in direct competition with Acme. Nothing like throwing some salt into the wound. But in the end it will be Shop-rite that will cast the death blow to Acme. Shop-rite will open a new store right next to an Acme and not even blink twice. To that I blame the GREEDY townships and cities that want money, money and more money at the cost of someone's livelihood down the line. I mean...how many Walmart's are really needed in Deptford Twp. New Jersey or how close do you build a Shop-rite to other stores before you draw the line. Just look at the township greed in Millville, New Jersey. All for the mighty rateables they collect. The Acme was open when Shop-Rite built next door so close that you can spit and hit it, not to mention the Path-Mark store across the street. This looks a bit like the store wars of the 1970's. Some say that the better store will win, I say we all will loose if there is only one giant to serve the masses.
ReplyDeleteShop Rite may not be on the list because they are a cooperative and operated by different companies.
ReplyDeleteAnon 1 brought up a good point. It seems as if both good ol' competition snd Supervalu's IMO discombobulated view of Acme (not to mention poor leadership by way of prevous owners) is killing Acme. and Supervalu putting its chips on opening more Save A Lots and encouraging its other BtoB retail customers, like Redner's and GreatValu/Fresh Grocer to open new stores in Acme territory (if this isn't a sign of Supervalu's lack of confidence in Acme I don't know what is!) and Giant is killing Acme with flashier stores and Walmart is opening more supercenters. A&P /Pathmark is getting its act toghether under a new CEO, but the real force is Shoprite witch is killing it. I say that because, although Acme is corporate and Shoprite is a cooperative. they both have the same high low format but Shoprite's is much better executed. I overheard that the difference in annual sales between a typical Shoprite and a typical Acme is about $3-4 million. and this IS looking like the store wars of the 70's that I have read about, the very same wars Food Fair it's "home" division. I hope that Acme does not go the same route as those long gone institutions
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