Wal-Mart to slash grocery prices

[Divine Discontent]

(Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc will cut food prices and mount a new ad campaign over the next six weeks, a threat to other U.S. grocers that sent an industry shares index down more than 2 percent on Friday.

U.S.-----


A Morgan Stanley analyst first reported the world's largest retailer's plan, calling it a major setback for other U.S. grocers, and the company confirmed the promotions in an email.

"While this helps address Walmart's traffic woes, we view this as a major setback for the grocery stocks, which have been rallying on hopes of a return to more rational pricing," Morgan Stanley analyst Mark Wiltamuth wrote in a note on Friday.

The Standard & Poor's Food Retail Sub-Industry Index closed down 2.2 percent.

Walmart has used aggressive pricing in grocery and other units to bring shoppers into its stores. The grocery business is particularly pressured by such pricing, as its profit margins are already low.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62I39320100319?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a49:g43:r1:c0.207589:b32049974:z0


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That's great and all, but I've made do by going to Publix and Winn-Dixie and buying BOGO free specials, and reduced items so that I rarely spend more than $10 in Wal-Mart a month now when I used to spend well over $100 one year ago. They are trying to say it's for economic reasons they're having to do this, but I think it's because a million people stopped giving the nasty-assed Wal-Mart their cash when they know how questionable they are in many areas.

[livetohike]

1. I live 20 miles from the nearest grocery store and the only

grocers in town are Aldi's and Walmart. I get everything I can at Aldi's and spend little at WalMart. When I get into Pgh (100 miles away), I stock up on things I can't get here.

I'd like to not have to go to WalMart at all.

[Divine Discontent]

2. I'd like to not have to go there, too, but sometimes I need boxes or some type of odd item I can't

get readily elsewhere, but the bulk of my purchase left them last year. Enough of us add up.

on a side note, I've hiked the AT in Maine with some folks, it was so gorgeous. I've also hiked up a couple of Southern Colorado mountains by myself, which whacked me out when I got to the top and I was all alone with nature and a pond, I felt like I could hear the heavens whispering. I'll never forget it. Where have you hiked?

[livetohike]

9. We've lived all over the US - so we have done a lot of

hiking in these states: PA, SC, TX, NY, MN and CA (lived there two different times).

We took a one year car camping trip across the US and Canada back in 1982, so did a lot of hikes in the Canadian Rockies (my favorite). When we were working, most of our vacations were camping vacations so we could seek out new places to hike :-).

The AT is gorgeous isn't it? We lived about two miles from the trail in NY and would sometimes just sit there and wait for thru hikers to walk by so we could hear about their adventures. In the summer, one was sure to see a few every day.

We're going to CO this August and hiking Longs Peak with a friend of ours, who lives in CA, but is from Denver. We're trying to get in shape for that, but I think the elevation will take its toll on me anyway. Sounds like a beautiful place you found up there.

Oh, and my all time favorite mountain? Mt. Shasta in northern CA.

[Divine Discontent]

12. thank you for the info!!

Mt Shasta is definitely on my to-do list then. I love Crestone Peak in the Sangre De Cristo mountains, I remember running by a deer who was standing by a tree and looked amazed that I was there as I went by trying to make it down the hill as quickly as possible for an appointment, the mountain has so many layers of what appear like their own "ecospheres" that I was amazed. One hour I was in a rock wall, the next in a lush forest with streams, the next on a sandy top with a pond. Good luck and God bless you on your future trails.

[livetohike]

19. Thanks for your good wishes

:hi: Mt. Shasta is very magical and powerful. I hope you get to go there sometime soon. You'll love it.

[Divine Discontent]

20. Me too! Thanks for the idea, and, oh yeah, GO BENGALS! hahaha

:hi:

[livetohike]

22. Ha! Now I can't let that go by without saying something

I'm not a Ben Roethlisberger fan. You guys can have him! :-)

[Divine Discontent]

23. HA! We've had ENOUGH problems in Bengals-World, don't you think, so no, really, he's yours!

[livetohike]

24. Maybe we can unload our trouble on the Browns! n/t

[Divine Discontent]

26. Haven't those pathetic fans suffered enough?

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[livetohike]

27. My b-i-l is one! It is pathetic

:rofl:

[Divine Discontent]

28. tell him he's still got Kosar Dreams to live off of. I don't know if they'll ever be good again. :)

[livetohike]

29. They just unloaded their future with losing Brady Quinn to

the Broncos. I love talking football - our friend we are hiking with in Aug. is a huge Broncos fan. Now they have so many Browns on their team, they are the Browncos :rofl:.

[havocmom]

3. They will 'slash prices' until they have put all competition out of business

then.... pay up or dine on 'the green'

[SoCalDem]

8. That's their plan.. It "worked" here..

We USED to have SEVERAL large "chain/union" grocery stores here, and in the last few decades , even though our population has more than TRIPLED, we now have FEWER stores..but we have TWO walmarts now.. The closed up supermarkets have been taken over (except for a few) by three smaller Hispanic-oriented stores..Superior, Cardenas & Fiesta.. (I assume they are non-union, but I am not sure..

We still have our Stater Brothers (2 stores) markets (they are union).


I have started shopping at the Superior market because it's close to my bank. It's been fun to try some of the frozen foods from Mexico..things I have never seen before, but are quite tasty:)...like frozen yucca & fresh frozen mango.. & they have Mexican ice cream too..yummy!..and an in-store bakery that is really good:)

Haven't set foot in a walmart for at least 7 years:)

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Of the 2 grocery store optins I have, one is in the "Dead Peasant" business

and one, reportedly, is not.
Reportedly, Wal-Mart has stopped the Dead Peasant Insurance game.
Winn-Dixie, my other option, has not. Winn Dixie is also expensive compared to
Wal-Mart and to the other grocery store which shut down 2 years ago.
There is the Dollar Store, limited items tho.
Quandary.

[blm]

5. I think WalMart is making its move to obliterate the regional and neighborhood markets

and are doing it in such an aggressive way that it will look very attractive to so many who are barely making ends meet.

They've been going full press on this leg of their campaign since late 2008. WalMart's 30 year fascist march will be a triumph for them if more people in this country don't catch on to their ploy.

[Divine Discontent]

7. I thought at some point they'd do that too. I guess this may be the move.

If they chop off 20% of their current prices, it will drive new business to them by the truck load, and those smaller places will not be able to compete. I will do what I can to avoid WM regardless.

[glinda]

10. Target is recently expanding their grocery sections so Walfart is trying to kill them as

competition also. The Government needs to step in on this as Walfart is a threat to jobs, environment, competition and many other things.

[blm]

31. Saw too many grocery stores in South Carolina close up shop the past decade...

but, it's not that much better here in NC...except in the larger cities.

Mr blm and I have stayed away from WalMart for almost 10 years now.

[walldude]

6. You know I can kind of understand getting

cheap stuff from Wal-Mart, times are tough, people are hurting and the shit is cheap. However you get what you pay for. And frankly, while I might be inclined to save a couple bucks buying a hammer at Wal-Mart, my food is not something I would screw around with. Besides my family is big enough for us to shop at Costco. We use King Soopers(Kroeger) for any smaller stuff we need.

[spinbaby]

11. That's just it--it's cheap food cheap

I've spent more time in Walmart than I like to admit because I sometimes take my in-laws shopping and that's where they shop. I"ve gotten a good look at what Walmart sells and it ain't pretty. While it's possible to eat sensibly shopping there, most of the food is overprocessed crap. Much of it seems to be packaged special for Walmart in packages that look a lot like what's in other stores but are really smaller and of lessor quality. The worst example I've seen is a brand of bacon the in-laws buy at Walmart and I buy at the regular grocery store. The Walmart package is 12 ounces instead of 16 ounces, and seems to be all irregular ends of bacon instead of nice slices. Also I've noticed that often they'll have just one or two brands of something while the grocery store has several brands.

[SoCalDem]

18. Most brands of bacon are now 12 oz or less

Farmland was a longtime hold out for the 16 oz "pound", but even they went to 12 oz..

I buy the restaurant-pak (superlong slices) at Smart & final & then I cut the whole package in half, split it up in small portions & freeze in qt size ziploc baggies. It ends up being much cheaper and the slices are in perfect sandwich-sized strips.. and the restaurant pak makes it possible to SEE the bacon & make sure it's not all fat:)..and the best part? It does not curl up:)

[spinbaby]

21. Not the brand I buy

I get Sugardale bacon at the Giant Eagle in 1-pound packages. Walmart has it in 12-oz packages that look identical except for the weight on the package.

[Sherman A1]

15. Agreed

I loathe Wal Mart, but I can't beat up a person who at their financial or wits end who shops there. In many cases you can get better deals at your local grocer, but it's up to those local grocers to sell you on that point.

[arcadian]

16. Wal-Mart's produce section is really disgusting.

deli has zero variety and the bakery churns out bland tasting pastries.

[Greyhound]

13. Profit margins are so low because of the nearly ubiquitous corporate

distribution system that our entire nation depends on. Horribly expensive and inefficient, it exists because of our desire to eat foods we can't produce, year-round.

What we need is a transformation in the grocery industry. Trader Joe's is one very good model, far less expensive and sustainable.

[jmowreader]

30. Yeah, because they don't have any fucking STORES!

I decided to go to Trader Joe's website and see if he had any stores in eastern Washington--I know he doesn't have any in North Idaho, but Spokane's always a possibility, right? Wrong. There's one in Vancouver and a shitload in the Puget Sound area, but none in Spokane? Come on. (And no, I am not going to move to Seattle just for a supermarket no matter how good it is. At worst I can just take a two-day trip and head to Seattle--which I'm planning to do anyway, take a three-day weekend once a quarter or so and head to the Pike Place Market with three or four 150-quart coolers in the back of the car.

[Greyhound]

33. It's their model that I'm talking about, and that only as an example of

successfully circumvent the corporate collusion that controls most of our food distribution system.

They are a small company that has grown across a big part of the nation by not playing the game dictated by the aforementioned, unsustainable corporatocracy.

[arcadian]

14. They won't be happy until they are the only game in town

for everything.

[upi402]

17. Reuters is such garbage

Doesn't surprise me they give Wal-mart some free advertising.

[L0oniX]

25. +¹

[Mopar151]

32. Local Wal-mart has "upgraded"

Snazzier displays, but subatantially less selection in things like canned veggies and pasta sauce
W've largely moved out shopping over to a regional chain (DeMoulas) who are non-union, and have a crummy reputation as am employer - but they are very competitive on prices with Wal-mart, and have a very good selection. Some prices - like Deli meats are substantially better, and their specials seem to be on stuff we really buy. Lots more "new england ethnic" foods, too.