Groceryshop Day 1: Kroger, Ahold Delhaize USA CEOs address recent headlines

Retail Brew has landed in Las Vegas, but we’re not here to gamble—we’re here for Groceryshop. The industry conference brings together top grocers; the big CPGs they sell; and the tech providers, distributors, suppliers, and investors they work with at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center to share their insights on the evolving grocery industry.

Day one kicked off with the biggest story in grocery: Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen discussed the grocer’s impending merger with Albertsons, fresh off the news this month of its divestiture of 400+ stores to C&S in a bid to gain FTC approval. McMullen shared that Kroger studied a divestment deal that went south—Albertsons’s sale of ~150 stores to regional grocer Haggen back in 2015 ahead of its merger with Safeway—to help inform its recent sale.

“It was really important to find somebody that had a strong balance sheet, had operated in the business and understood the grocery business and had scale, had talent, understood what they had and didn’t have,” McMullen noted.

For CPGs worried about the loss of their negotiating power should the merger go through, McMullen said Kroger isn’t looking to “arm wrestle” brands. “I just don’t look at any of this as ‘you lose, I win,’” he said. “To me, we have to figure out a way where we both win together.”

Ahold Delhaize USA CEO JJ Fleeman, who’s been in the chief seat for five months, also weighed in on recent headlines. He spoke about the Washington, DC, Giant store that earlier this month pulled brand-name health and personal care items off shelves to prevent theft. The effort, which is limited to that location, was an attempt to “get retail theft under control,” he said. Fleeman admitted the issue of shrink “doesn’t keep me up at night,” but noted it’s a “real issue,” sharing that the company has worked with other retailers and invested in AI tech to try to combat it.

And speaking of AI…a lot of people were doing just that throughout the day, particularly weighing the risks and rewards of deploying generative AI. The latest trend appears to be big CPGs creating and naming their own internal ChatGPT programs: Tropicana Brand Group’s is TropGPT, CEO Monica McGurk said, while Nestlé’s chief digital and e-commerce officer, Veeral Shah, said the company dubbed theirs NesGPT.

Now we just have one question: does KraftGPT exist? We need to know! We’ll keep you posted on this and other important takeaways when we’re back tomorrow reporting from day two of the show.