Report: Whole Foods on the block, Albertsons said to be interested

[retailisking]

The supermarket giant has previously been linked to takeover talks with Price Chopper and Sprouts
http://www.supermarketnews.com/retail-financial/albertsons-looking-whole-foods-report

[mixedday]

Any takeover of Whole Foods by a traditional grocer like Albertson's especially, will be a downgrade to Whole Foods. You'll see items like Natural Cheetos, plastic bags and items with hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup make the shelves. It will be farce. Eventually they'll change the name to steer clear of Whole Paycheck reference, and you'll have essentially what was a real estate grab.

Whole Food prices can be high. While people will pay more for organics, I doubt most Americans care for all that Whole Foods is into like fair trade chocolate or sorting compost from recycle from landfill. And many wealthy people are still very mainstream and inclined to go to Wegmans or Costco, which are clearly more upscale than Wal-Mart but not carrying the more specialty products one can get at Whole Foods.

In the Mid Atlantic, there is a smaller chain called Mom's Organic Markets. It's not gourmet (e.g. you can't even get pre-cut fruits there) but still organic. In Cherry Hill, it competes against Whole Foods and Wegmans. I think being private and smaller can help. Unlike Whole Foods that targets high rent locations, Mom's targets lower rent plazas but in still good areas.

[retailisking]

I doubt Albertsons would monkey with the formula that much. What they would bring, mostly, is increased buying power. Alby's is possibly looking for a publicly traded grocer that they could use in a reverse takeover scenario so their private equity owners could finally get that IPO.