Grocery store competition article

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/2013 ... 702249916/

Interesting. It looks like a Whole Foods has closed in Palatine.

toria wrote:http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20130224/business/702249916/

Interesting. It looks like a Whole Foods has closed in Palatine.

They are opening a HUGE new Whole Food about 3 miles up the road on Route 12 on March 6th, 2013

It is mention in the story just below the closing of the Palatine store.

Grocers aren't stocking up on new stores in Chicago, leaving many shoppers with fewer places to fill their cart. There are 262 grocery stores in Chicago and close-in suburbs, the lowest number since 2009, according to an urban grocery report by retail brokerage Mid-America Real Estate Group. Grocers occupy just over 9.3 million square feet of space, also an eight-year low.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ ... story.html

Dave148 wrote:

Grocers aren't stocking up on new stores in Chicago, leaving many shoppers with fewer places to fill their cart. There are 262 grocery stores in Chicago and close-in suburbs, the lowest number since 2009, according to an urban grocery report by retail brokerage Mid-America Real Estate Group. Grocers occupy just over 9.3 million square feet of space, also an eight-year low.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ ... story.html

Sadly, very few have the ability to compete with Amazon, Target, Walmart and Kroger. And as people work more, and those four buy up more stores and prepared food services, it will only get worse. I fear but I expect that most grocery shopping will ultimately done via the internet, where you roam virtual aisles and the food is delivered to you from a massive distribution center. There will be few competitors but you will ultimately choose the one that delivers you the best quality produce/meats/etc. For the discerning customer, this is awful news. But I fear there are fewer and fewer of those.

On the plus side, those of us in areas with the most concentrated populations should fare better than most. At least the stores in these areas see better concentrations of shoppers.

It is interesting that Fresh Thyme is planning on expanding the number of stores in the Chicago area to 17. Maybe they should try to fix what is wrong with their current stores before they expand. I read somewhere that WF approached Amazon about taking them over. They had some renegade stock owners who were determined that they were going to find somebody to buy out WF, and WF determined that Amazon was the best match for them. I'm surprised that Meijer's was not able to compete in the collar suburbs. Has anybody heard what is going on with the former Dominick's space in Morton Grove? I heard that Meijers was going to take over that space. Thanks, Nancy