The Albertsons on Gage in Richland is Morphing Into a Safeway

I live in Kennewick, work in Pasco and visit my daughter multiple times a week in Richland, so yeah, I get around the Tri-Cities. I must not have been paying attention because at what point did the Albertsons on Gage in Richland become a Safeway?

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I called the Safeway in Kennewick, looking for a comment, thinking that I'd get the equivalent of a group "huh?", if I even got a hold of a real person.

However, not only did I speak to a human being, I got to talk to a pair of nice ladies including a supervisor who told me it didn't surprise her the store was changing names and also that she was in the dark about it, because both of the stores are owned by the same company and have been since 2014, so they would not have felt the need to tell her.

I was not aware of that.

Safeway and Albertsons are run separately but are the same company. They are both owned by a capital investment group named Cerberus Capital. Albertsons did bring in the Safeway brand of products to their stores. Safeway is part of the privately owned Albertsons, and one of many grocery store brands owned by Albertsons.

On July 25, 2014, Safeway stockholders approved the merger with Albertsons. In December 2014, Albertsons announced that the Haggen Company, a Bellingham, WA, based grocery chain, was buying 146 Safeway, Albertsons and Vons stores, as required by the antitrust review of the merger.

It's interesting that an Albertsons flipped to Safeway, and not the other way around, as it seems that is the usual circumstance.