The Kroger Company

Logo since 2021
Kroger headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio
Company type	Public
Traded as	NYSE: KR S&P 500 component
ISIN	US5010441013
Industry	Retail
Founded	1883; 141 years ago (1883), in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
Founder	Bernard Kroger
Headquarters	Cincinnati, Ohio , U.S.
Number of locations	2,719 supermarkets (Q1 2023)[1]
Area served	United States
Key people	Rodney McMullen (CEO & chairman)[2]
Products	Supercenter/superstore, Other specialty, supermarket
Revenue	US$150 billion (2023)[3]
Operating income	US$3.477 billion (2022)[3]
Net income	US$1.655 billion (2022)[3]
Total assets	US$49.086 billion (2022)[3]
Total equity	US$9.452 billion (2022)[3]
Number of employees	465,000 (2022)[4]
Divisions	Inter-American Products various chains
Website	www.thekrogerco.com www.kroger.com

The Kroger Company, or simply Kroger, is an American retail company that operates (either directly or through its subsidiaries^[5]) supermarkets and multi-department stores throughout the United States.^[1][6]

Founded by Bernard Kroger in 1883 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Kroger operates 2,719 grocery retail stores under its various banners and divisions in 35 states and the District of Columbia^[6] with store formats that include 134 multi-department stores, 2,273 combo stores, 191 marketplace stores, and 121 price-impact warehouse stores.^[1][6] Kroger operates 33 manufacturing plants, 1,642 supermarket fuel centers, 2,254 pharmacies, 225 The Little Clinic in-store medical clinics, and 127 jewelry stores (782 convenience stores were sold to EG Group in 2018).^[1][6] Kroger's headquarters are located in downtown Cincinnati.^[7]

The Kroger Company is the United States' largest supermarket operator by revenue^[8] and fifth-largest general retailer.^[9] The company is one of the largest American-owned private employers in the United States.^[10][11][12] Kroger is ranked #17 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.^[13]

About two-thirds of Kroger's employees are represented by collective bargaining agreements,^[14] with most being represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).^[15]

History

Beginning

In 1883, 23-year-old Bernard Kroger, the fifth of ten children of German immigrants, invested his life savings of $372 (equivalent to $12,164 in 2023) to open a grocery store at 66 Pearl Street in downtown Cincinnati.^[16] The son of a merchant, he ran his business with a simple motto: "Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself."^[11][17] He experimented with marketing products his company had produced so that his customers would not need to patronize separate stores and farms.

In 1884, Kroger opened his second store. By 1902, Kroger Grocery and Baking Company had been incorporated.^[18] By this time, the company had grown to forty stores and sold $1.75 million worth of merchandise each year. In addition, Kroger became the first grocery chain to have its own bakery.^[19]

In 1916, Kroger company began using self-service shopping. Before this, all articles were kept behind counters. Customers would ask for them, then clerks would deliver them to customers.^[19]

In 1929, it was rumored that Safeway would merge with Kroger.^[20][21] It took nearly a century before this rumor became reality, when Kroger announced in 2022 that it would acquire Safeway's parent company, Albertsons.

In the 1930s, Kroger Grocery and Baking Company became the first grocery chain to monitor product quality and to test foods offered to customers. It also became the first company with a store surrounded on all four sides by parking lots.^[22] In 1932, the company tested a pilot project after it opened a grocery store in Indianapolis.^[23] The facility, which was surrounded by a 75-car parking space, allowed the company to determine the close relationship between parking facilities and gross sales.^[23]

1950s

Earlier variants of the Kroger logo, including one used from 1939 to 1961 (top), and the previous variant, 1961 to 2019, still extant on Kroger brand products (bottom)

Beginning in 1955, Kroger began acquiring supermarket chains, expanding into new markets. In May, Kroger entered the Houston, Texas, market by acquiring the Houston-based 26-store chain Henke & Pillot.^[12] In June, Kroger acquired the Krambo Food Stores, Inc. of Appleton, Wisconsin.^[24] In July, it purchased Child's Food Stores, Inc. of Jacksonville, Texas, and operated 25 supermarkets in Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana.^[25]

In January 1956, the company bought out Big Chain Stores, Inc., a chain of seven stores based in Shreveport, Louisiana, later combining it with the Childs group. All of these chains adopted the Kroger banner in 1966.

During all the acquisitions, in September 1957, Kroger sold off its Wichita, Kansas, store division, which consisted of 16 stores, to J. S. Dillon and Sons Stores Company, then headed by Ray S. Dillon, son of the company founder.

1960s

In October 1963, Kroger acquired the 56-store chain Market Basket, providing them with a foothold in the lucrative southern California market. Prior to this time Kroger had no stores west of Kansas.^[26] Kroger, however, failed to make significant headway, only managing a 5 percent market share. By 1982, it withdrew from the California market.^[27]

Kroger opened stores in Florida under the SupeRx and Florida Choice banners from the 1960s until 1988, when the chain decided to exit the state and sold all of its stores; Kash n' Karry bought the largest share.^[28][29][30]

1970s

In the 1970s, Kroger became the first grocer in the United States to test an electronic scanner and the first to formalize consumer research.^[31]

Although Kroger has long operated stores in the Huntsville-Decatur area of northern Alabama (as a southern extension of its Nashville, Tennessee, region), it has not operated in the state's largest market, Birmingham, since the early 1970s, when it exited as a result of intense competition from Winn-Dixie and local chains Bruno's Supermarkets and Western Supermarkets.

Kroger built an ultra-modern dairy plant (Crossroad Farms Dairy) in Indianapolis in 1972. At the time, it was considered the largest dairy plant in the world.

Kroger exited the Chicago market in 1970, selling its distribution warehouse in Northlake, Il. and 24 stores to the Dominick's Finer Foods grocery chain.

Kroger exited the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in 1970, selling 16 stores to Quality Foods, which rebranded the stores to Piggly Wiggly.

Kroger exited Milwaukee in 1972, selling a few stores to Jewel. Kroger would later return in 2015 upon its acquisition of Roundy's.

Kroger entered the Charlotte market in 1977 and expanded rapidly throughout the 1980s when it bought some stores from BI-LO. However, most stores were in less desirable neighborhoods and did not fit in with Kroger's upscale image. Less than three months after BI-LO pulled out, that company decided to re-enter the Charlotte market, and in 1988, Kroger announced it was pulling out of the Charlotte market and put its stores up for sale. Ahold bought Kroger's remaining stores in the Charlotte area and converted them to BI-LO.^[32][33]

1980s

Kroger had a number of stores in the Western Pennsylvania region, encompassing Pittsburgh and surrounding areas from 1928 until 1984 when the U.S. began experiencing a severe economic recession. The recession had two significant and related effects on Kroger's operations in the region. One of them was that the highly cyclical manufacturing-based economy of the region declined in greater proportion than the rest of the U.S., which undercut demand for the higher-end products and services offered by Kroger. The second effect of the economic recession was to worsen labor-management relations, causing a protracted labor strike in 1983 and 1984. During the strike, Kroger withdrew all of its stores from the Western Pennsylvania market, including some recently opened "superstores" and "greenhouses", selling these stores to Wetterau (now part of SuperValu), who promptly flipped the stores to independent owners while continuing to supply them under the FoodLand and Shop 'n Save brands.^[34] Kroger's exit ceded the market to lower-cost, locally owned rivals, most notably Giant Eagle and the SuperValu-supplied grocers. (Kroger purchased Eagle Grocery company, whose founders went on to create Giant Eagle.) Kroger still maintains a presence in the nearby Morgantown, West Virginia, Wheeling, West Virginia, and Weirton, West Virginia/Steubenville, Ohio, areas where Giant Eagle has a much smaller presence and the SuperValu-supplied stores are virtually nonexistent, though in all of these cases, Walmart remains a major competitor and Aldi is the only other supermarket with any market overlap.

Kroger entered the competitive San Antonio, Texas, market in 1980 but pulled out in mid-1993. On June 15, 1993, the company announced the closure of its 15 area stores. From 1984 to 1986, Kroger exited the Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Akron, and St. Louis markets. The company cited that higher wages for union employees made it unable to compete.^[35]

The chain closed several stores around Flint, Michigan, in 1981, which were converted by local businessman Al Kessel to a new chain called Kessel Food Markets.^[36] Kroger bought most of these stores back in 1999 and began reverting them.^[37] Several other Michigan stores were sold to another Flint-based chain, Hamady Brothers, in 1980.^[38] The Hamady acquisition was short-lived.^[39]

In 1982, Kroger sold the 65-store Market Basket chain it had operated for several years in southern California. The stores were reverted to the Boys Markets branding, after acquiring the chain. Boys Markets was acquired by the Yucaipa Companies in 1989. When Yucaipa acquired Ralphs, the Boys brand disappeared.

In 1983, The Kroger Company acquired Dillon Companies^[40] grocery chain in Kansas along with its subsidiaries (King Soopers, City Market, Fry's and Gerbes) and the convenience store chain Kwik Shop. David Dillon, a fourth-generation descendant of J. S. Dillon, the founder of Dillon Companies, became the CEO of Kroger.

In northeastern Ohio, Kroger had a plant in Solon, Ohio until the mid-1980s. When that plant shut down,^[41] Kroger closed its northeastern Ohio stores in the Cleveland, Akron, and Youngstown areas. Some of those former Kroger stores were taken over by stores like Acme Fresh Markets, Giant Eagle, and Heinens.

Kroger opened and had about 50 stores in St. Louis until it left the market in 1986, saying that its stores were unprofitable. Most of its stores were bought by National, Schnucks, and Shop 'n Save. Most of the remaining Kroger stores in eastern Missouri and west-central Illinois became a western extension of the Central Division (headquartered in Indianapolis).

Kroger also experienced a similar withdrawal from Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1989. Many of these stores were sold to the local grocery chain Red Food, which was in turn bought by BI-LO in 1994. Today, Chattanooga is the only metropolitan market in Tennessee in which Kroger does not operate with the nearest location being Dalton, Georgia with 2 stores (Walnut Avenue and Cleveland Highway).

1990s

In the 1990s, Kroger acquired Great Scott (Detroit), Pay Less Food Markets, Owen's Market, JayC Food Stores, and Hilander Foods. Additionally, the Houston market was strengthened when Kroger bought several stores from AppleTree Markets, which were former Safeway stores in early 1994.

In 1998, Kroger merged with the then fifth-largest grocery company Fred Meyer, along with its subsidiaries, Ralphs, QFC, and Smith's.^[42]

In the late 1990s, it acquired many stores from A&P as it exited many markets in the South.

Kroger also swapped all ten of its Greensboro, North Carolina-area stores in 1999 to Matthews, North Carolina-based Harris Teeter, for 11 of that company's stores in central and western Virginia. Kroger in turn would acquire Harris Teeter 15 years later.

2000s

Long the dominant grocer in western Virginia, Kroger entered the Richmond, Virginia, market in 2000, where it competes against market leaders Martin's (including former Ukrop's stores) and Food Lion. Kroger entered the market by purchasing Hannaford stores that either already existed or were being built in Richmond. Hannaford purchases also included the competitive Hampton Roads market, where it now competes with Farm Fresh, Harris Teeter (which is owned by Kroger), and Food Lion.^[43] The Hannaford locations in these markets were purchased from Delhaize by Kroger as a condition of Delhaize's 2000 acquisition of the Hannaford chain, which had previously competed against Food Lion, also owned by Delhaize.^[44] Walmart Supercenters are also major competitors in both markets, and the chain briefly competed against Winn-Dixie, which has now exited Virginia.

In 2001, Kroger acquired Baker's Supermarkets from Fleming Companies, Inc.^[45][46]

Albertsons exited the San Antonio and Houston markets in early 2002, selling many of the Houston stores to Kroger.^{[citation needed]}

In 2004, Kroger bought most of the old Thriftway stores in Cincinnati, Ohio, when Winn-Dixie left the area. These stores were reopened as Kroger stores.^[47]

In 2007, Kroger acquired Scott's Food & Pharmacy from SuperValu Inc.,^[48] and in the same year, also acquired 20 former Michigan Farmer Jack locations from A&P when A&P exited the Michigan Market.

In 2008, Kroger began a partnership with Murray's Cheese of New York City.^[49] Murray's Cheese counters within Kroger stores sell a variety of artisanal cheese from all parts of the world.

2010s

On July 9, 2013, Kroger announced that it would acquire the 212 stores of Charlotte-based Harris Teeter in a deal valued at $2.5 billion and that it would assume $100 million in the company's outstanding debt.^[50] Harris Teeter's stores are in eight Southern states, with a major portion of them in its headquarters state of North Carolina.^[51] Doing so, Kroger acquired Harris Teeter's click-and-collect program, which allows online ordering of groceries. Some industry experts saw this as a competitive move against online grocers such as AmazonFresh.^[52] The Harris Teeter acquisition marked Kroger's return to the Charlotte market after a 25-year absence. It also allowed Kroger to enter Asheville for the first time. Charlotte and Asheville had been the only large markets in North Carolina where Kroger had no presence.^{[citation needed]}

In 2013, Kroger announced that the spouses of the company's unionized workers would no longer be covered by the company's insurance plan. The company cited the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as a prime reason for the move. The benefit cut affected roughly 11,000 workers in Indiana.^[53][54] The company announced in April 2013 that full-time employees would maintain their health insurance benefits.^[55]

On March 3, 2015, Kroger announced it would enter Hawaii, having registered with the state as a new business in February 2015. Kroger was planning to expand to Hawaii in 2006 but withdrew after it had already submitted registration. Kroger, which is in the process of looking for locations to open its first store, will face competition from Honolulu-based rivals Foodland and Times; major retailers Safeway, Walmart, and Costco; Japanese-owned Don Quixote; and Department of Defense-owned DeCA Commissaries.^[56]

On May 1, 2015, Kroger announced the acquisition of the seven-store Hiller's Market chain in Southeast Michigan, and that it would operate all but one of those stores under the Kroger banner.^[57]

In June 2015, Kroger eliminated the Harris Teeter brand from the crowded Nashville, Tennessee, market, where its growth had been stunted by aggressive competition since it entered with six stores in the early 2000s.^[58] Kroger has traditionally had a market-leading presence in Nashville and initially promised to keep the five remaining Harris Teeter stores open when it acquired the chain,^[59] but the market "did not support Harris Teeter's future business plans".^[60] Two Harris Teeter stores were closed outright, and three closed temporarily while being converted to the Kroger brand (one of these would undergo a major remodeling and replace a neighboring Kroger store).^[61]

On November 11, 2015, Kroger and Roundy's announced a definitive merger, bringing Roundy's chain's 166 primarily Wisconsin based chains under Kroger ownership. The merger is valued at $800 million, including debt. The acquisition, which brought Kroger back to Wisconsin after a 43-year absence, will retain the Roundy's, Pick 'n Save, Mariano's, Metro Market and Copps names, along with its Milwaukee operations.^[62] (Within a year-and-a-half, however, Kroger had rebranded all Copps locations to the Pick 'n Save banner.)

In April 2016, Kroger announced that it had made a "meaningful investment" in the Boulder, Colorado-based Lucky's Market, an organic foods supermarket chain that operated 17 stores in 13 states throughout the Midwest and Southeast United States.^[63]

In February 2017, Kroger withstood large community protests after announcing the closing of two smaller-sized Louisville-area stores. Despite high store volumes and high population densities, the Old Louisville (lease expiration) and Southland Terrace stores closed.

On February 7, 2017, it was announced that Kroger Co. had purchased Murray's Cheese.^[64]

As of 14 February 2017^[update], Kroger is no longer offering a discount to senior citizens 59 and up.^[65]

On May 1, 2017, Kroger, along with the University of Kentucky and UK Athletics, sports and campus marketing partner JMI Sports, announced a 12-year, $1.85 million per year campus marketing agreement. Included in the agreement is the naming rights to Commonwealth Stadium, the university's football stadium, which will be renamed Kroger Field. This agreement makes the University of Kentucky the first school in the Southeastern Conference to enter into a corporate partnership for the naming rights to their football stadium.^[66]

On May 10, 2017, Kroger opened its first convenience store^[67] in Blacklick, Ohio, labeled "Fresh Eats MKT". The new prototype stores will have about 12,000 square feet (1,100 square meters) of space, and will be very similar to the Walmart Neighborhood Market project, as these stores only sell food. These stores have a Starbucks, and a Kroger Pharmacy. On June 1, 2017, Kroger opened their second Fresh Eats. Kroger is also going to convert some Turkey Hill stores into the concept store. The CFO, Mike Schlotman, has called these stores a "small test." Local reaction to this new concept has been positive. The concept was discontinued in March 2020.^[68]

In February 2018, Kroger announced that it will be selling its 762 convenience stores to EG Group, a British service station operator, for $2.15 billion. They operate under the Turkey Hill, Loaf 'N Jug, Kwik Shop, Tom Thumb and Quik Stop banners. Kroger will retain just over 20 convenience stores. Kroger's supermarket fuel centers are not included in the sale.^[69][70][71] The sale was closed on April 20, 2018.^[72]

On April 10, 2018, Kroger announced plans to hire an estimated 11,000 new employees. An estimated 2,000 managerial positions will be filled by the new hires. With the addition of these new hires, the total number of people employed by the company is close to half a million.^[73][74]

On May 17, 2018, Kroger announced a partnership with Ocado, a UK-based online supermarket. The partnership is designed to improve Kroger's ecommerce program, including online ordering, automated fulfillment, and home delivery via the construction of 20 new, automated fulfillment centers.^[75] The first of these fulfillment centers, located in Monroe, Ohio, opened in April 2021. As of September 2023^[update], eight total fulfillment center locations have been constructed and opened, with additional locations in Groveland, Florida, Forest Park, Georgia, Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, Dallas, Texas, Romulus, Michigan, Aurora, Colorado, and Frederick, Maryland.^[76] Each fulfillment center also operate in conjunction with several "spoke" facilities, which assist to further extend the capable range of delivery. As of September 2023^[update], the latest "spoke" facility to be opened is located in Johnstown, Colorado.^[77] Kroger has taken advantage of its investment in online shopping capability to grow rapidly during the pandemic. In 2020, Kroger's online sales grew by 116%, to over $10B annually.^[78]

On May 24, 2018, Kroger announced they were acquiring Home Chef for $200 million with an additional $500 million in incentives if certain targets are met by Home Chef.^{[citation needed]}

On June 13, 2018, Kroger Mid-Atlantic announced the Kroger branding will be leaving the Raleigh-Durham area by eliminating all 14 Kroger-branded stores, eight of which will transition to Harris Teeter (also owned by Kroger). One will become a Crunch Fitness and another will become a Food Lion. The fate for the remaining four stores is unclear.^[79]

In July 2018, Kroger officials backed off a Net 90 payment plan to the produce industry.^[80]

In October 2018, Kroger announced online wine delivery to 14 states in partnership with DRINKS.^[81] Customers can select assorted wines in 6-bottle or 12-bottle packs.^[82]

On December 4, 2018, Kroger announced a deal to sell food inside drugstore Walgreens.^[83] Kroger Express^[84] will offer meal kits and other meal solutions.

In the light of increased self-checkout usage via kiosk or smartphone app in 2019, Kroger is gradually shifting towards creating more self-checkout smartphone apps and lanes than cashier lanes. The company has been investing millions of dollars, in replacing many cashier stations with automation by 2023. As many other supermarkets (such as Walmart and Target) are also shifting towards automation, and displacing cashiers in the near future.^[85]

In March 2019, Kroger announced it was expanding its service with robotics company, Nuro to Houston, Texas with Nuro's autonomous Priuses.^[86]

In August 2019, Kroger began charging customers between $0.50 and $3.50 for receiving cash back while making purchases with debit cards.^[87][88] The new fees were first test marketed in March at Kansas area Dillons stores, a Kroger-owned supermarket chain, before the new fees were rolled out to other Kroger-owned supermarket banners in the rest of the nation.^[89]

In September 2019, Kroger announced a partnership with the Plant Based Food Association (PFBA) to test a plant-based meat retail concept in 60 stores in Denver, and parts of Indiana and Illinois.^[90]

In November 2019, Kroger unveiled an updated logo for their stores and company, with the '"Fresh For Everyone" tagline and the "Krojis".^[91] The company also announced an expansion of its online wine delivery program into Arizona.^[92] In partnership with DRINKS, the service is now available in 19 states plus Washington D.C.^[93]

In December 2019, Kroger was named the second-largest grocer in the nation with $110 billion in 2016 sales. The same month, USA Today listed Kroger—and its brands—as the top supermarket (based on Google searches, Yelp data, and 24/7 Tempo's research) in Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia.^[94]

2020s

According to a PBS NewsHour February 13, 2021 broadcast, during the pandemic, Kroger provided their essential workers with a hazard pay, which the company called "hero pay." The hero pay consisted of a raise of US$2 an hour from the end of March 2020 until May 2020, when the hero pay ended.^[95] In January 2021, the Long Beach City Council in California passed an ordinance making it mandatory for some large grocery stores—like Kroger—to provide their essential workers with a hazard pay increase of US$4 an hour "effective immediately for 120 days". The ordinance affected companies with "more than 300 workers nationwide and more than 15 employees per store".^[95]

Seattle and Washington passed similar ordinances. In response, in early February, Kroger announced the closure and permanent termination of the entire operations of some of their stores—including a Ralphs and a Food4Less in Long Beach—"for economic reasons including the economic cost mandated by the Long Beach ordinance requiring an increase in employee wages, four dollars an hour".^[95][96] The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), with members whose jobs had been terminated, viewed the closures as a "warning to other cities considering hazard pay mandates".^[95]

Andrea Zinder, president of the UFCW Local 324 that represents employees at the two stores—Ralphs and a Food4Less—said that compared to the same time period in 2019 both stores saw an increase of about 30% in sales.^[95] In 2020, during the pandemic, Kroger's earnings increased by 87.7%.^[97] Kroger's quarterly revenues as reported by November 20, 2020, were US$29.72 billion, and the corporation's per-share earnings and dividends grew at a rapid rate in 2020. Its dividend increase was about 14% annually.^[98]

Starting in early 2020, Berkshire Hathaway began buying shares of Kroger, and by August 2021 became a top ten shareholder.^[99][100]

In 2021, the company was reported to have been breached by a third-party hack which compromised the pharmacy records of Kroger owned Fred Meyer and QFC stores' customers.^[101]

On August 2, 2021, Kroger announced that it had elected Elaine Chao, formerly Secretary of Labor under President George W. Bush and Secretary of Transportation under President Donald Trump, to its board of directors.^[102] The news was met with backlash from a small number of Kroger customers on Twitter, with calls for a boycott trending nationally due to her ties to the Trump administration and to her husband, Mitch McConnell.^[103]

On September 23, 2021, a mass shooting occurred at a Kroger location in Collierville, Tennessee. One person was killed and 13 others were injured before the gunman, identified as 29-year-old Uk Thang, committed suicide by gunshot. Thang was working at the store as a third-party vendor.^[104][105] In the aftermath of the shooting, Kroger offered counseling services for its employees and closed down the store until November 10.^[106]

In September 2021, Kroger tweaked its logo to add the "Fresh Cart" symbol. The symbol is an abstract shopping cart with the basket represented as citrus slices.^[107]

In October 2021, Kroger announced an expansion into South Florida with its online delivery service, Kroger Delivery. To do this, Kroger will build two new automated fulfilment centers assisted and facilitated by the UK-based technology company Ocado Group. Kroger Delivery is also set to launch in the Northeast of the US and expand its operations in California, to be followed by sites in Texas, Georgia, Maryland, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and North Carolina. The company launched its online delivery services in Central Florida earlier in 2021.^[108][109]

On April 5, 2022, Kroger launched Kroger Restaurant Supply in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, a new business distributing food and related supplies to restaurants, bakeries, and catering companies. For Kroger, this move into foodservice distribution represents an expansion beyond its core retail grocery operations.^[110]

On October 14, 2022, Kroger announced a merger with Albertsons in a deal worth $24.6 billion, combining both companies into one entity but divesting some stores to C&S Wholesale Grocers to secure regulatory approval. The transaction is expected to close in early 2024.^[111][112] However, in January 2024, Washington state sued to block the proposed $25 billion merger between Kroger and Albertsons, warning that if approved it could raise prices and harm consumers.^[113] In February 2024, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser also filed a lawsuit, saying consumers told him they feared it "would lead to stores closing, higher prices, fewer jobs, worse customer service, and less resilient supply chains.”^[114] In February 2024, the FTC sued to block the acquisition stating that the deal would negatively impact consumer prices and workers' wages.^[115]

Finances

For the fiscal year 2020, Kroger reported earnings of US$1.907 billion, with an annual revenue of US$122.286 billion, an increase of 0.4% over the previous fiscal cycle. Kroger's shares traded at over $32 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at US$25.9 billion in April 2020.^[116]