Albertsons closures in Southern California and – Business News
Albertsons should have one hell of a headache.
Industry insiders say the Boise-based grocery store behemoth is nursing a “merger hangover” after the Federal Trade Commision blocked a $24.6 billion marriage to Kroger — and that the grocery giant is making an attempt a restoration by shuttering a slew of shops in Southern California and past.
The failed deal was presupposed to be a lifeline to help the chain compete with even greater gamers like Walmart. Albertsons additionally operates Golden State staple manufacturers like Safeway, Vons and Pavilions.
Albertsons is closing shops across the nation underneath a quantity of totally different manufacturers, as half of a push in the direction of larger effectivity, in line with experiences.
The newest spherical of cuts impacts Vons areas in Escondido and Redlands, which is able to close in April — wiping out 135 jobs. The unwelcome information comes after an Albertsons store close to Riverside shuttered Mar. 19, ensuing in 75 layoffs.
In February, a Safeway in the Alameda space shut its doorways for good, impacting 76 staff.
The newest spherical of pantry ache isn’t restricted to the West Coast — it’s additionally hitting North Texas, the place two Tarrant County areas are set to go darkish by late April, pink-slipping 138 staff, per Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filings reported by USA Today.
A Safeway in Washington, D.C. is slated for a May closure, impacting 87 employees.
USA Today reported that Albertsons’ CEO Susan Morris is leaning closely into AI and automation to trim the fats, reporting that its Q3 2025 digital gross sales have jumped 21%.
Albertsons is making an attempt to compete with Walmart and different bigger rivals as digital gross sales skyrocket. Alamy Stock Photo
While the company boasts of “smarter decisions” and “greater efficiency” by way of tech, that effectivity is coming on the price of human cashiers and stockers.
The company had already shuttered some 20 shops in 2025, in line with experiences.
The information comes after California competitor Grocery Outlet introduced the closure of dozens of shops final month — specializing in people who had been “underperforming financially,” in line with President and CEO Jason Potter.
Meanwhile, Albertsons stock has taken a important hit over the previous 12 months — reflecting investor jitters because the 87-year-old giant tries to show it isn’t a retail dinosaur in an more and more digital world.
But even the likes of Walmart aren’t resistant to headwinds on the automation entrance — critics dumped on the discounter after information that it had received two patents giving laptop algorithms more of a position in product pricing, The Post beforehand reported.
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One new instrument is reportedly capable of grab delicate shopper information, together with driver’s license numbers, to study more about clients, whereas the opposite is alleged to have the ability to shortly change pricing based mostly on product reputation.
“Dynamic pricing or anything that smells like it is playing with fire,” an industry insider warned of the information.
“The goodwill that you can lose by getting customers to think or suspect or worry even slightly that you are doing things with pricing that are to your benefit and their detriment,” they stated.
