Small food retailer eyes big-time growth

Little known food retailer Haggen Northwest Fresh will grow its store base more than 800% following a Federal Trade Commission mandate that Albertson’s and Safeway divest 168 stores.

Few people have heard of Haggen outside Washington and Oregon, where the company operates 18 stores, but now the food retailer is about to get dramatically bigger and expand its presence to three more western states.

Haggen is the beneficiary of an FTC ruling requiring Albertson’s and Safeway to divest 168 stores in order to consummate their merger and Haggen will pick up 146 of those locations and extend its presence to California, Nevada and Arizona.

The deal will give Haggen 164 stores with 106 pharmacies, compared with its current store count of 18 locations with 16 pharmacies.

With this pivotal acquisition, we will have the opportunity to introduce many more customers to the Haggen experience. Our Pacific Northwest grocery store chain has been committed to local sourcing, investing in the communities we serve, and providing genuine service and homemade quality since it was founded in 1933,” said John Caple, chairman of the Haggen board of directors and partner at Comvest Partners, the private investment firm that acquired a majority stake in the family-owned Haggen chain in February 2011. “We will continue our focus on sourcing and investing locally even with this exciting expansion.”

The company will be led by CEOs John Clougher and Bill Shaner. Clougher, CEO, Pacific Northwest, will have primary responsibility for the northern division of Washington and Oregon. Shaner, CEO, Pacific Southwest, will have primary responsibility for the southern division of California, Nevada and Arizona.

The deal is expected to close in early 2015, at which time Haggen will convert all of the acquired Albertsons and Safeway stores to the Haggen banner in phases during the first half of 2015. The company said it plans to retain the current store management teams.

We warmly welcome these new employees and stores into the Haggen family. The stores are well run and very successful, thanks to the dedicated store teams,” Clougher said. “We want to retain these existing teams while allowing our growing company to build on their past successes. We plan to adopt the best practices of our new stores to offer a superior shopping experience for our valued customers in all of our stores.”