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> but they do not have the size that European supermarkets have to resist price increases by suppliers. Walmart bankrupted Vlassic by suckering them into a dea

> but they do not have the size that European supermarkets have to resist price increases by suppliers. Walmart bankrupted Vlassic by suckering them into a deal where they were stuck selling pickles at a loss. They are infamous for dictating price to their suppliers.

ABeeSea 4y ago
Campbell’s soup spun Vlasic off as a separate company but they loaded them with debt owned back to Campbell’s. Two years later, Vlasic missed a debt payment to Campbell’s and had to go into bankruptcy.
ajcp 4y ago
The article was referencing regional grocers. However, and to your point, Albertsons and Safeway may be "national" brands but Albertsons, Inc. (which is Albertsons/Safeway) actually has 22 "regional" banners that are all serviced by a single corporation, which I don't think this article actually takes into account.
- QuercusMax 4y ago
  I discovered a few years back when visiting OH, SoCal, and VT that my Safeway card works at Vons, Acme, and Shaw's.... and that the store layouts and much of the contents are basically identical as well.
  - klodolph 4y ago
    The layouts are extremely purposeful. There are books written about how to lay out grocery stores. They do the same kind of A/B testing on store layouts that Amazon does on the “buy it now” button. It’s no accident that there are three different places in the grocery store to buy cheese, or that produce is at the front of the store and milk at the back, or that candy is next to the register and potato chips are on the end caps.
latchkey 4y ago
> Walmart bankrupted Vlassic https://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know https://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know
refurb 4y ago
I always find the Walmart Vlasik story funny. I mean Vlasik could always say no? If they were dumb enough to enter into a deal with Walmart than was worse than no deal at all, that’s on them. My guess is some sales dude thought he could get a good deal with Walmart, couldn’t, took it anyways, then decided to blame Walmart. I mean if I need my house painted and some painter offers a deal where they lose money don’t blame me when I accept.
- bsder 4y ago
  > My guess is some sales dude thought he could get a good deal with Walmart, couldn’t, took it anyways, then decided to blame Walmart. WalMart deals always look good in the short term. The problem is the longer term. What really happened is that some sales dude got a deal with WalMart, bumped his numbers, got a promotion, cashed his check, and cleared outta dodge. And then over the next few years WalMart squeezed Vlasic to death.
- bsder 4y ago
  > I mean Vlasik could always say no? Saying no doesn't always work out either. See: Snapper https://www.fastcompany.com/54763/man-who-said-no-wal-mart https://www.fastcompany.com/54763/man-who-said-no-wal-mart Snapper got bought by Briggs & Stratton and the Georgia plant was closed.
  - refurb 4y ago
    Sounds like Snapper, similar to Vlasik, was headed for the crapper Walmart or no Walmart.
noirbot 4y ago
Yea, that seems totally bunk outside of double or single-digit store companies. Even the regional US chains like Publix or HEB or Fred Meyer are as large as many EU chains outside of Tesco, which may as well be the Walmart of Europe. I'm just tired of so many articles whose whole premise is "the US isn't doing thing X that a smaller, denser, and massively older country has done." Yea, the US has issues and is responsible for a lot of its own problems, but it's also not the same as Germany or France or Spain on so many different levels. You can make the case that the US should actually be N different countries, but that's not really an option, so you deal with the world as it is.
- morsch 4y ago
  Even the regional US chains like Publix or HEB or Fred Meyer are as large as many EU chains outside of Tesco, which may as well be the Walmart of Europe. Tesco isn't the largest chain in Europe. Walmart is bigger than the large European chains, by a factor of (just?) about 5 to 10. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103223/leading-grocery-stores-in-europe-by-sales/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103223/leading-grocery-... https://payspacemagazine.com/retail/top-7-supermarket-chains-in-europe/ https://payspacemagazine.com/retail/top-7-supermarket-chains...
  - noirbot 4y ago
    Ah fair. I mostly meant that in the sense that, Tesco is closer to Walmart's "we sell everything" offering. Your second link was talking about the largest grocer in Europe having 1300 stores across 8 countries, which is about the same size as Publix which only operates in 7 states and has 800 stores in Florida alone.
    - morsch 4y ago
      Schwarz group operates 1300 Kaufland stores. Kaufland is like a Walmart (as far as I understand), each store is huge and sells everything. They also operate around 10000 Lidl stores across 32 countries. Those are smaller and sell mostly groceries. I think Tesco exists in several sizes, from small urban stores to suburban super stores.
CaptainZapp 4y ago
Obligatory link: https://www.fastcompany.com/54763/man-who-said-no-wal-mart https://www.fastcompany.com/54763/man-who-said-no-wal-mart

ABeeSea 4y ago

Campbell’s soup spun Vlasic off as a separate company but they loaded them with debt owned back to Campbell’s. Two years later, Vlasic missed a debt payment to Campbell’s and had to go into bankruptcy.

ajcp 4y ago

The article was referencing regional grocers. However, and to your point, Albertsons and Safeway may be "national" brands but Albertsons, Inc. (which is Albertsons/Safeway) actually has 22 "regional" banners that are all serviced by a single corporation, which I don't think this article actually takes into account.

QuercusMax 4y ago
I discovered a few years back when visiting OH, SoCal, and VT that my Safeway card works at Vons, Acme, and Shaw's.... and that the store layouts and much of the contents are basically identical as well.
- klodolph 4y ago
  The layouts are extremely purposeful. There are books written about how to lay out grocery stores. They do the same kind of A/B testing on store layouts that Amazon does on the “buy it now” button. It’s no accident that there are three different places in the grocery store to buy cheese, or that produce is at the front of the store and milk at the back, or that candy is next to the register and potato chips are on the end caps.

latchkey 4y ago

> Walmart bankrupted Vlassic https://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know https://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know

refurb 4y ago

I always find the Walmart Vlasik story funny. I mean Vlasik could always say no? If they were dumb enough to enter into a deal with Walmart than was worse than no deal at all, that’s on them. My guess is some sales dude thought he could get a good deal with Walmart, couldn’t, took it anyways, then decided to blame Walmart. I mean if I need my house painted and some painter offers a deal where they lose money don’t blame me when I accept.

bsder 4y ago
> My guess is some sales dude thought he could get a good deal with Walmart, couldn’t, took it anyways, then decided to blame Walmart. WalMart deals always look good in the short term. The problem is the longer term. What really happened is that some sales dude got a deal with WalMart, bumped his numbers, got a promotion, cashed his check, and cleared outta dodge. And then over the next few years WalMart squeezed Vlasic to death.
bsder 4y ago
> I mean Vlasik could always say no? Saying no doesn't always work out either. See: Snapper https://www.fastcompany.com/54763/man-who-said-no-wal-mart https://www.fastcompany.com/54763/man-who-said-no-wal-mart Snapper got bought by Briggs & Stratton and the Georgia plant was closed.
- refurb 4y ago
  Sounds like Snapper, similar to Vlasik, was headed for the crapper Walmart or no Walmart.

noirbot 4y ago

Yea, that seems totally bunk outside of double or single-digit store companies. Even the regional US chains like Publix or HEB or Fred Meyer are as large as many EU chains outside of Tesco, which may as well be the Walmart of Europe. I'm just tired of so many articles whose whole premise is "the US isn't doing thing X that a smaller, denser, and massively older country has done." Yea, the US has issues and is responsible for a lot of its own problems, but it's also not the same as Germany or France or Spain on so many different levels. You can make the case that the US should actually be N different countries, but that's not really an option, so you deal with the world as it is.

morsch 4y ago
Even the regional US chains like Publix or HEB or Fred Meyer are as large as many EU chains outside of Tesco, which may as well be the Walmart of Europe. Tesco isn't the largest chain in Europe. Walmart is bigger than the large European chains, by a factor of (just?) about 5 to 10. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103223/leading-grocery-stores-in-europe-by-sales/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103223/leading-grocery-... https://payspacemagazine.com/retail/top-7-supermarket-chains-in-europe/ https://payspacemagazine.com/retail/top-7-supermarket-chains...
- noirbot 4y ago
  Ah fair. I mostly meant that in the sense that, Tesco is closer to Walmart's "we sell everything" offering. Your second link was talking about the largest grocer in Europe having 1300 stores across 8 countries, which is about the same size as Publix which only operates in 7 states and has 800 stores in Florida alone.
  - morsch 4y ago
    Schwarz group operates 1300 Kaufland stores. Kaufland is like a Walmart (as far as I understand), each store is huge and sells everything. They also operate around 10000 Lidl stores across 32 countries. Those are smaller and sell mostly groceries. I think Tesco exists in several sizes, from small urban stores to suburban super stores.

CaptainZapp 4y ago

Obligatory link: https://www.fastcompany.com/54763/man-who-said-no-wal-mart https://www.fastcompany.com/54763/man-who-said-no-wal-mart