The Friday Checkout is a weekly column providing more insight on the news, rounding up the announcements you may have missed and sharing what’s to come.
Public scrutiny of Kroger’s effort to merge with Albertsons has centered on how the proposed deal could impact issues like food prices and community access to supermarkets, but the Federal Trade Commission has for months made the case that the transaction is unacceptable because it would give the companies undue power over grocery workers.
So it’s perhaps no coincidence that the FTC announced on Wednesday — just two days after the start of its high-profile court battle to stop the merger — that it has partnered with three other federal agencies to step up antitrust review of the interplay between mergers and labor markets.
The pact between the FTC, the Justice Department’s antitrust division, the Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board lays out how the agencies will share resources to strengthen their efforts to protect workers. The announcement about the intragovernmental arrangement doesn’t mention the Kroger-Albertsons deal, but it’s hard not to connect them.
Kroger has also drawn attention to the welfare of grocery workers as it seeks to dislodge the FTC’s bid to torpedo its deal to combine with Albertsons, but takes the position that the merger would be good for its workers because it would lead to higher wages and better benefits.
In a statement provided to the media hours after the court fight got underway on Monday, Kroger sought to position itself as a defender not only of unionized workers but also of people who work for companies whose workforces do not have representation. “If the merger is blocked, the non-union retailers like Walmart and Amazon will become even more powerful and unaccountable,” Kroger declared.
Would allowing Kroger and Albertsons to merge make them too strong — or enable them to serve as a much-needed check on the competition? That’s a question that could help decide the fate of the supermarket mega-merger. And it’s one that only the judge will be able to answer.
In case you missed it
Instacart links with Pfizer ahead of cold season
Instacart announced Tuesday the launch of PfizerForAll, a digital platform through which consumers can order diagnostic tests such as COVID-19 and flu tests from the pharmaceutical company and have them delivered in as fast as an hour.
Stop & Shop shutters first Massachusetts store as part of chainwide closures
The Ahold Delhaize-owned banner closed its store at 165 Needham St. in Newton, Massachusetts, on Thursday, Boston 25 News reported. The store marks the first of eight in the state to shutter as the chain looks to shutter 32 stores by Nov. 2, the news outlet reported.
Stop & Shop announced in July its plans to close stores across the Northeast, including two in Rhode Island, five in Connecticut, seven in New York and 10 in New Jersey, amounting to 8% of its total store count.
Meijer opens pharmacy inside a hospital
Meijer announced this week it now has its second pharmacy inside a hospital operated by non-profit health system Corewell Health. The retailer opened a 3,100-square-foot pharmacy inside Blodgett Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The Meijer-owned-and-operated pharmacy includes over-the-counter products often requested by hospital staff, patients and their families, as well as services such as immunizations, specialty pharmacy services and prescriptions tailored to patients’ needs.
The retailer opened its first Corewell pharmacy in 2015 inside Butterworth Hospital, which is also in Grand Rapids.
Number of the week: 28
That is the number of Fred Meyer stores impacted by an ongoing strike. The strike, authorized by the grocer’s unionized workers over unfair labor practice allegations, began Wednesday morning and could last through Labor Day weekend.
What’s ahead
Dollar Tree earnings
The discount retailer plans to share its second-quarter earrings and host an investor call on Wednesday morning.
Latest jobs report
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to release its latest employment report next Friday, giving insight into the grocery industry workforce during August.
Impulse find
Orange lobster pardoned for Labor Day
An “extremely rare” orange lobster was spared a deadly fate at a Long Island, New York, Stop & Shop store when Humane Long Island returned it to the ocean earlier this week, according to local magazine Dan’s Papers. According to HumaneLI, lobsters only have a 1-in-30 million chance of being orange, Dan’s Papers reported.
The lobster — affectionately (and appropriately) named Clementine — was discovered in a shipment of regular brown lobsters just before the Fourth of July, according to the local news outlet. The Stop & Shop store it was sent to attempted to give Clementine to a local aquarium, but it declined to take the lobster.
HumaneLI, after working to re-acclimate Clementine to cold saltwater, released her into the Long Island Sound and made sure “she was swimming, she was foraging — all sorts of lobster behavior,” John Di Leonardo, HumanLI director, told the paper.
