Grocery Wars Continue . . .

With Haggen’s Burlington Soon to Open,
Other Food Chains Carry on Unconcerned

by Janet O’Mara

Groceries are groceries are groceries — or so it would seem at first glance. But wait! So many “grocery stores” exist in Skagit County, if there were really no differences between them, how would they all survive?

The answer is that there are distinctions, of course, and each store has its loyal customers. Most merchants in Skagit County think the differences are pronounced enough that they can all prosper.

Just look at one of the busiest streets in the county, Burlington Boulevard north of the Skagit River Bridge: Costco Wholesale, Cost Cutter Food and Pharmacy, Fred Meyer, the soon-to-be Haggen Food and Pharmacy, and Thrifty Foods.

“There’s a myth out there that when a new entity opens up, it kills everybody else,” says Wayne Harris, general manager of Costco Wholesale. “But I think that retail grows retail.

“So, through the whole valley, yes, there’s a lot of competition,” he observes, “but not anything I’ve heard from anybody about Costco has been negative in any way. We draw people in from a wide area, all the way from Everett, Stanwood and the islands. Those people come to town to do their shopping with us and then do some more shopping at the other grocery stores and the malls before they head back.

“What I see happening to Burlington is that we’re becoming a hub for services and retail,” explains Harris.

 

A myriad of choices

Indeed, the other major communities also are grocer-heavy. Mount Vernon has its Robert’s Red Apple, Skagit Valley Food Co-op (see cover story), Albertson’s, Safeway, Food Pavilion and Canned Goods Grocery Outlet; Anacortes is well represented with a Pavilion and a Safeway; Sedro-Woolley has a Thrifty Foods and Market Place and a Safeway soon going in; lest we forget Albert’s Red Apple in Concrete; and there are a multitude of small grocery outlets everywhere.

“We’re aware that the retail arena in Skagit County has gotten way more competitive, but we’re up to the challenge,” comments Sue Cole, director of public affairs at Brown and Cole, which owns Thrifty Foods, Cost Cutters, Food Pavilion, Ennen’s Stores and others. One of the company’s smallest stores, Thrifty Foods at the corner of Fairhaven and Burlington Boulevard is nearly 50 years old and only 25,000 square feet, but it continues to hold its own against the newer giants.

“Our competition certainly comes from other supermarkets, but more and more our competition also comes from stores like the Wal-Marts that have groceries,” she says. “Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world. We compete against them, but we’re just this little chain headquartered in Bellingham — that kind of keeps you humble.”

The oldest grocery chain in the area, Brown and Cole’s first store was located in Lynden in 1909. In the mid-1970s, the company began to acquire other stores, including the Thrifty-Pavilion chain once based in Burlington, and today owns 35 stores total, with all but two in Washington.

“We’ve been selective, but it’s worked out well for us,” explains Cole. “Even when we renovate, we’re not spending the money we would if we were building a whole new facility, so that translates down to better costs for our customers.”

 

New Haggen’s huge

The newest addition to Burlington, Haggen Foods and Pharmacy, due to open late this year or early next, will be a whopping 63,500 square feet filled with most of the usual Haggen offerings, according to Becky Skaggs, Haggen spokesperson. There will be a bank outlet — which one is still to be determined — plus Oriental kitchen, deli, cheese island and sandwich and salad bars. “And of course we’re famous for our outstanding produce department,” notes Skaggs, “as well as our from-scratch bakery.”

At the new Burlington Haggen’s, extra parking and retail space have been built into the site. “We like to be around other retail development because we all feed off each other,” explains Skaggs. She says she cannot disclose what else is going in there right now, “but it’s pretty exciting.”

The company has not changed its overall strategy much since last year, except that the proposed Lynden project has fallen through. There are 24 stores in Washington plus three in Oregon and plans are to continue to expand. According to Skaggs, the company has added other sites, including one in Arlington, with more planned in Washington and Oregon in the next year or so. They would still be interested in finding a site in Anacortes sometime in the future, she adds.

The Fred Meyer stores are not concerned about the growing competition, either, according to Rob Boley, assistant vice president for public relations, for the Portland-based chain. “On the one hand, we compete with a lot of other retailers, so just about everybody who’s out there is a competitor for Fred Meyer,” he says. “But on the other hand, we have our own niche because no single chain that’s out there really competes with us.

“We have a one-stop shopping edge that nobody else matches up to,” declares Boley.

There seems to be room for all stores and all shoppers.

“I work here and I shop here,” explains Costco’s Harris, “but I also shop at Haggen’s, Safeway and Fred Meyer. I shop at those stores because they also have lots of things that I need.”