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Today, Explained

Supermarket supermerger

Today, Explained

Vox

News, Daily News, Politics

4.3 • 10.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 October 2022

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Grocery story giants Kroger and Albertsons want to become one mega-company. The chains say merging will allow them to lower their prices, but antitrust researcher Ron Knox says we should be skeptical. This episode was produced by Victoria Chamberlin, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained   Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Could I ask you guys a question? No. We can record it. No. That's the camera. Yeah. Oh, it's not a camera. It's still working. I'm working hard.

0:10.0

Today explained producer Victoria Chamberlain went creeping around a safe place supermarket in Washington DC yesterday asking employees and shoppers a question.

0:19.0

Do you know who owns your local grocery store? The employees couldn't talk. The shoppers could. Victoria asked locals.

0:27.0

Do you know who owns safe place doors? Do you know that any other company? I don't know. No. I don't know. I don't know. And visitors.

0:34.0

I can glomerate, which pays me off because you fuel, you grog, and you feed all around the same company.

0:43.0

People understand their local grocery store is part of a much bigger chain. But now, two of the biggest chains want to become one.

0:52.0

What that means for you, your choices, and your wallet. Coming up on today's blind.

1:01.0

Support for today's show comes from Slack. A digital HQ in Slack brings your teams, partners, and tools together in one space.

1:09.0

Slack helps companies stay flexible, accelerate projects, and keep teams aligned. So work just works. How exactly?

1:18.0

Organised projects in channels work across time zones with huddles and clips and even streamline partnerships with Slack Connect.

1:26.0

However you work, Slack is the flexible digital HQ for organised and efficient teams, no matter where they're logging in from.

1:34.0

Get started at slack.com slash DHQ. Slack, where the future works.

1:48.0

It's today explained. I'm Noelle King. Ron Knox is a senior researcher and writer at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

1:55.0

And we called him up to explain this proposed supermarket super merger.

2:00.0

Supermarket chain Kruger announced that it wants to buy its rival Albertsons for about $25 billion.

2:08.0

Experts say the merger would give both companies more buying power, allowing them to be more competitive with Walmart.

2:14.0

As part of the deal, Albertsons will pay a special cash dividend up to $4 billion to a shareholders on record as of October 24th.

2:23.0

We will invest half a billion dollars or $500 million in lower prices for customers.

2:29.0

That merger would combine the largest and the fourth largest grocery store chains in the country.

2:35.0

Kruger, again, largest full-service grocery chain in the US. It's second only to Walmart in terms of grocery sales.

2:42.0

These name brands, you know, these are like the corporate names of these companies. They might not be that familiar to your listeners.

2:48.0

But through a series of other mergers and industry consolidation over the last few decades, these companies own a bunch of other name brands, supermarket chains around the country.

...

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