Major Chains Closing Stores – Dominick’s grocery – California – 16/16

Major Chains Closing Stores – Dominick’s grocery – California – 16/16


Major Chains Closing Stores – Dominick’s grocery – California – 16/16

Dominick’s grocery

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Pleasanton grocery giant Safeway Inc. will have to close down at least some of its more poorly performing Dominick’s supermarkets in the Chicago area, according to the executive who runs the division.

In a speech before the City Club of Chicago on Monday, Randall Onstead Jr. said the company won’t discuss numbers until Dominick’s employees are officially notified in early January which stores will be affected. Onstead was appointed president of Safeway’s troubled Dominick’s unit last month.

“It’s not going to be 40 or 50 stores,” Onstead told the audience. “That’s not going to happen.”

The development occurred after Safeway threw in the towel last month on its efforts to sell Dominick’s, the Chicago area’s second-largest grocery chain that has slipped over the past five years in its regional battle with Jewel-Osco, a grocery/drug chain owned by Albertson’s Inc. And as if its lengthy, contentious labor dispute in Southern California isn’t enough, Safeway is contending with 9,000 unionized workers at Dominick’s who’ve been working without a contract for the past year.

After purchasing Dominick’s for more than $2 billion in 1998, industry analystssaid the value of the chain has probably shrunk by more than $1.5 billion today. While Safeway officials said earlier this year they had a potential buyer for the regional chain, an agreement between that unidentified company and the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents most of the employees, could not be worked out.

  • Safeway closed 72 Dominick’s grocery stores in the Chicago area last year.