MILWAUKEE, WI – After acquiring Roundy’s and spending roughly $50 million remodeling grocery stores in Fox Valley and Madison, Wisconsin, Cincinnati-based retail giant The Kroger Co. is turning its focus to Milwaukee.
“We’ll spend well over $50 million starting to remodel the stores in Milwaukee in 2017,” said Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen, in an article published by local news source the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel. “We’ll continue to expand the Metro Market concept as well.”
Upon completion of the purchase of Roundy’s last year, Kroger became the leading grocer in Milwaukee, with nearly 40% of the market share. Kroger holdings account for roughly a third of the market share statewide.
As we have recently reported, Kroger tied with Walmart atop the Kantar Retail’s 2016 US PoweRanking® survey earlier this year. The company currently holds top-two market shares in major markets across the nation, including: Los Angeles, Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, Seattle, Denver, Dallas, Cincinnati, San Diego, and Charlotte, among others.
Does Kroger intend to further consolidate its market share in Wisconsin? “Absolutely,” McMullen told the Journal Sentinel. “Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin. We want to make sure we get a foundation in place and get our base business growing.”
Kroger currently employs more than 13,000 people throughout the state, with some 7,500 working in the 60 stores in the Milwaukee metropolitan area and at the former Roundy’s headquarters in downtown Milwaukee. Nationwide, the retailer employs 431,000 people who serve roughly 8.5 million customers in 35 states each day.
The company’s announced remodeling plans are part of a continuing effort to revive the Pick ‘n Save brand after the brand lost ground amidst intense local and national competition. The company is looking to consolidate their stores in the state under Pick ‘n Save and Metro Market banners.
Metro Market stores offer a different take on retail—an upscale, urban store concept that offers higher-end products and attention to details that mimic Roundy’s successful Mariano’s brand in Chicago.
"In the Fox Valley and Madison, all the stores that weren’t already operating as Pick ’n Save stores are now operating under that banner," McMullen said. “We had two different brands in the market and we converted all those stores to Pick ’n Save. That’s really the name we will use in Wisconsin other than, obviously, the Metro Market stores.”
Will the major retailer be successful in growing its brand in the middle of Milwaukee’s already-crowded grocery market? Only time will tell; check in with AndNowUKnow for updates as they happen.
