I sure hope Alaskans are paying attention to the pending Kroger-Albertson’s grocery store merger that is currently being reviewed by the Federal Trade Commission. And I also hope Alaskans are telling the governor and your elected representatives in Juneau and in Congress to try to help derail this merger.
Fred Meyer is a subsidiary of Kroger, and the Carrs and Safeway grocery stores are Albertson’s subsidiaries. A merger therefore means most grocery store competition will be gutted in any Alaska community where both chains have stores, and Alaskans can expect to see increased prices at their local grocery stores as a result. You can expect to see these price increases to happen in Anchorage, Juneau, Fairbanks, Soldotna, Kenai, Palmer and Wasilla, where both these chains currently compete.
So unless our governor and congressional delegation raise objections with the Federal Trade Commission to help try to stop this merger from happening, we might all need to think about buying smaller turkeys this Thanksgiving.
— Steve DeVries
Anchorage
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