[CSMastermind]

I have a weird affection for good georcery chains. Wegmans, HEB, Giant Eagle, to a limited extent Publix. It's so odd to me that there are areas of the country with nothing like them. It really seems like you just need one good family who decides that they're going to care about how they're set up and make an effort to build a company with the right values.

[actionfromafar]

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48477135

[aidenn0]

Grocery stores got bad in most of the country the way a lot of things did, through illegal M&A.

[CSMastermind]

They used to have HEB, Wegmans, etc quality stores in Seattle before some merger? What were they?

Why did this M&A seemingly not happen in Texas, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio?

[aidenn0]

I've never lived in Seattle, but I know that Haggen was a casualty of The Safeway/Albertson's merger[1]; I can't speak to their quality.

Safeway and Albertsons had already bought up many grocery stores prior to that merger. When I was a kid, we knew which grocer had the best butcher and which had the best baker, and neither were chain stores.

1: Granted Haggen isn't entirely innocent here; they saw a potential growth opportunity and over-leveraged.