C&S ups number of stores it would acquire under Kroger-Albertson merger

Keene, N.H.-based C&S Wholesale Grocers has increased the number of grocery stores it plans to acquire nationwide as part of a proposed merger between The Kroger Co. and Albertson Cos. Inc.

The proposal aims to appease federal regulators by reducing Albertson and Kroger’s overall market share ahead of the contentious merger.

Lauren La Bruno, C&S Wholesale Grocers vice president for communications, said in an email Wednesday that the company would gain 579 stores under the deal, up from 413 stores in a $2 billion acquisition plan announced last year.

The deal also includes four distribution centers and a dairy plant, all outside the Monadnock Region, according to Bruno.

“We are also very excited to welcome thousands of highly skilled grocery retail, store and distribution team members from Kroger and Albertsons who are currently responsible for these supermarkets,” La Bruno said.

“Their knowledge, along with C&S’s wholesale and supply expertise, will ensure these stores continue to successfully serve their communities. C&S will recognize the union workforce and maintain all collective bargaining agreements. We are committed to retaining frontline employees and further investing in growth.”

La Bruno noted that the deal remains to be finalized The merger between Kroger and Albertsons is facing legal challenges.

The stores to be acquired by C&S are in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington state and Washington, D.C.

The distribution centers are in Arizona, Colorado, Utah and Washington state. The dairy plant is in Denver.

The stores would be operated by 1918 Winter Street Partners, a subsidiary of C&S Wholesale Grocers, La Bruno said.

Pending finalization of the deal, La Bruno said no information was being released on whether its local facilities would expand or whether new people would be hired in its Keene operations.

In February, the Federal Trade Commission filed a federal lawsuit to block Kroger’s proposed $24.6 billion merger with Albertson The FTC called the plan “the largest proposed supermarket merger in U.S. history.”

In a news release at the time, the FTC alleged the deal would lead to higher prices and make it harder for workers to get better wages and working conditions.

“To try to secure antitrust approval of their merger, Kroger and Albertsons have proposed to divest several hundred stores and select other assets to C&S Wholesale Grocers (C&S), which today operates just 23 supermarkets and a single retail pharmacy,” the release said.

“The FTC’s administrative complaint alleges that Kroger and Albertsons’s inadequate divestiture proposal is a hodgepodge of unconnected stores, banners, brands, and other assets that Kroger’s antitrust lawyers have cobbled together and falls far short of mitigating the lost competition between Kroger and Albertsons.”

Founded in 1918 in Worcester, Mass., C&S has headquarters on Corporate Drive in Keene and in the city’s industrial park district. The company also runs a 300,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution center across the Connecticut River in Brattleboro on Old Ferry Road it built in 1981, among 31 other facilities across 13 states listed on its corporate website, not including its Keene properties.

The proposed merger between Kroger and Albertson would form a grocery corporation of more than 4,000 stores.