Major U.S. supermarket chain Kroger plans to close about 60 stores across the country over the next 18 months, addressing some streamlining it couldn't get to while its failed merger with Albertsons Cos. was pending.
The Cincinnati-based grocery chain — operating 2,730 stores under its own name as well as under such banners as Fred Myers, Fry's Food Stores and King Soopers — discussed the store closings in reporting its first-quarter earnings. Kroger took a $100 million impairment charge in the quarter due to the planned trimming of its store count.
Kroger did not disclose the locations of the stores it plans to close.
"So we see this as an opportunity to move these closed store sales to other stores, and we think that we should improve profitability," Kroger Interim Chairman and CEO Ron Sargent told Wall Street analysts. "There’s really minimal financial impact on company results as a result of these store closures. The geography is spread, really, around the country. It’s kind of ones and twos by division. And all the associates who are affected will be offered jobs in their other stores."
Kroger evaluates individual store performance on an annual basis, but it deferred closing any locations during the failed merger process with Albertsons, according to Sargent.
The store closings are part of the aftermath of the derailed merger in which Kroger proposed buying Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons for $24.6 billion, announced in October 2022 in what would have been a merger of the nation's biggest grocers, but a federal judge blocked the sale in December over antitrust concerns. Albertsons promptly sued Kroger for breach of contract, resulting in a countersuit.
Kroger is still searching for a permanent replacement for its former CEO Rodney McMullen, who stepped down in March after a company investigation into his personal conduct. Kroger never provided details of the probe.
Even as Kroger is closing several dozen stores, it said it plans to accelerate new store rollouts in 2026.
"We don’t have a number to share with you this morning, but it’ll be north of the 30 that we open this year," Sargent said, adding that new stores are the biggest driver of market share gains.
"We’re looking at geography across the country," he said. "There’s no specific area. We are probably going to favor areas of the country that are growing faster than others. We’re going to look at where we have competitive opportunities for growth within cities that we operate in. But it’s really scattered around the country, and there’ll be a variety of store formats, although the Marketplace store is a terrific format, and many of them will be Marketplace stores."
One of Kroger's new stores is planned for Aurora, Colorado. It will be a 123,000-square-foot King Soopers superstore.
