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Kroger in Vermont?

Posted: 18 Nov 2021 00:36
by BatteryMill
So I've made an interesting Kroger-related discovery. In the February 1956 issue of Chain Store Age, a Kroger store in the city of Saint Albans, Vermont was mentioned as having completed an expansion. However, this listing runs contrary to evidence as I have never heard of Kroger operating in the region under any other marquee, with their closest outputs being located in Erie and other northwestern Pennsylvania towns. Who has any other clues about this strange find?
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Re: Kroger in Vermont?

Posted: 18 Nov 2021 12:35
by Steve Landry
Very interesting!

In my past research for Food Fair I found many anomalies like that.

Company annual reports often did not jive with media and industry reports.

Internal reports would tell me of a store in Vermont or New Hampshire or West Virginia or Nevada and even Palm Springs without any external support reporting.

Very frustrating and worse with a dead company (and weirdly erased company) like Food Fair Inc.

Re: Kroger in Vermont?

Posted: 18 Nov 2021 18:19
by Groceteria
City directories for 1953/1958 do not show a Kroger in St Albans, Vermont. My suspicion is that this one is misfiled and they're actually referring to St Albans, West Virginia, where there was indeed a Kroger store that seems likely to have relocated or expanded about 1956.

Re: Kroger in Vermont?

Posted: 18 Nov 2021 19:52
by BatteryMill
Steve Landry wrote: 18 Nov 2021 12:35 Very interesting!

In my past research for Food Fair I found many anomalies like that.

Company annual reports often did not jive with media and industry reports.

Internal reports would tell me of a store in Vermont or New Hampshire or West Virginia or Nevada and even Palm Springs without any external support reporting.

Very frustrating and worse with a dead company (and weirdly erased company) like Food Fair Inc.
Interesting to find such errors abounding in another publication. One of my friends had pointed out how Chain Store mixed up Michigan, Missouri, and Mississippi; I have also spotted errors such as "Merion" (Marion, IL) and a city named DeKalb in Georgia.
Groceteria wrote: 18 Nov 2021 18:19 City directories for 1953/1958 do not show a Kroger in St Albans, Vermont. My suspicion is that this one is misfiled and they're actually referring to St Albans, West Virginia, where there was indeed a Kroger store that seems likely to have relocated or expanded about 1956.
Well then, good to know.

One pointer that does provide for Kroger being in Vermont is a fact that Kroger had undertaken 50+ acquisitions in the decades prior, before being busted by the FTC some years later. If the magazine was indeed right, it might have been just a flop operation or a covert acquisition that hasn't made the Kroger history books.

Re: Kroger in Vermont?

Posted: 21 Nov 2021 23:38
by rich
St. Albans is considered a remote part of Vermont, away from any populous part of New England. It's also long been the poorest parts of Vermont. Its pretty unlikely they would have expanded there.

DeKalb is a county in Georgia. Until recently, it had a small part of Atlanta proper and a small number of towns, some of which were tiny. Kroger has stores in DeKalb County and some of them are in unincorporated DeKalb County. Their original Atlanta store was in DeKalb County, so they've been there since the 1920s.