Alaska
The parent companies of 2 of Alaska’s grocers want to merge. Here’s what we know.
Last week, Alaska Congresswoman Mary Peltola joined 27 other D.C. lawmakers from 16 states in a legal brief backing a lawsuit by federal regulators to block a massive, national grocery store merger.
Most Alaskans live in a community where a Fred Meyer store competes directly with a Carrs or a Safeway, so the proposal for one parent company to buy the other for $24.6 billion has a lot of Alaska consumers worried.
Here’s what we know about where the proposal is now, after it was first announced in October of 2022.
What’s at stake?
If you take what the companies are saying in good faith, not much. They’ve made sweeping promises about the good things that will happen and the bad things that won’t if Kroger, which owns Fred Meyer, is allowed to buy Albertsons, which owns Safeway and Carrs. The companies say investors, customers, workers and communities are all supposed to benefit.
“We are confident our transaction with the proposed divestitures will mean lower prices and more choices for customers,” Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen said in a video about the proposed merger. “It will mean more opportunities for retail associates to grow their career while we secure the future of good paying union jobs.”
Here are some of the specific promises Kroger and Albertsons have made:
- No store closures
- No pharmacy closures
- No front-line job losses with protection for worker pay and benefits
- A $500 million investment in reducing prices
- A $1 billion investment in employee benefits
- A $1.3 billion investment to improve Albertsons stores
Kroger points to its 20-year track record that includes lowering its profit margins to keep prices down amid past acquisitions.
How can all of these promises be possible?
The idea is if Kroger and Albertsons merge, they’ll be in better shape to compete with even bigger retailers, like Costco and Walmart, as well as growing competitors, like dollar stores that now sell groceries and even Amazon. Bigger scale means bigger efficiencies, and that’s where the upside is supposed to come from.
Of course, most Alaskans live in communities where Fred Meyer competes with Carrs or Safeway. Specifically, that’s Anchorage, Eagle River, Palmer, Wasilla, Fairbanks, Juneau and Soldotna.
Federal regulators are wary of mergers because they can be anticompetitive, concentrating too much market power and hurting regular shoppers. To try to win regulators’ approval, Kroger and Albertsons say they’re prepared to sell off all 15 of the Carrs and Safeway stores in those Alaska communities, plus three more in Girdwood, Kenai and North Pole, to a company called C&S Wholesale Grocers based in New Hampshire.
The Safeways in Seward, Valdez, Kodiak, Ketchikan, Nome and Unalaska are not on the divestment list and would remain with the merged company.
Nationally, Kroger and Albertsons plan to sell a total of 579 stores, plus six distribution centers and a dairy plant, to C&S.
Again, McMullen says these divested stores won’t close, because C&S is committed to running them as they are today.
Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankoran says C&S will make the landscape more competitive.
“Their deep industry knowledge and experience gives us great confidence in their ability to become even fiercer competitors moving forward,” Sankoran said in the video.
C&S CEO Eric Winn also says his company is playing the long game.
“We are confident this expanded divestiture package will provide the stores, supporting assets and expert operators needed to ensure these stores continue to successfully serve their communities for many generations to come,” Winn said in an April press release.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555, which represents 30,000 grocery store workers in Oregon, Idaho and Washington, came out in support of the merger in February. However, the parent union, which represents 1.2 million workers, voted last year to oppose the merger. Other UFCW locals, including Alaska’s, also oppose the merger.
So what’s the problem? Why do people oppose the merge?
Basically, opponents just don’t believe the companies, and there isn’t anything in place to hold them to their promises.
In Alaska, the opponents include Democratic Congresswoman Mary Peltola, 24 state lawmakers, the grocery store workers’ union and lots of regular Alaskans.
“It’s a huge issue for Alaskans that resonates. It’s not a political issue, it’s a pocketbook issue,” said Veri di Suvero, executive director of the Alaska Public Interest Research Group, a statewide consumer advocacy nonprofit that also opposes the merger. “Whether or not it’s in good faith, about these spinoffs, we’ve seen over and over again that they don’t work.”
Di Suvero points back to 1999, when Safeway bought out Carrs. AKPIRG and Alaska’s attorney general got involved, and they worked out a deal to sell off seven stores to let the merger go through.
Six of those stores became Alaska Marketplace grocery stores. They all closed within about a year.
The seventh, at the University Center mall in Midtown Anchorage, survived and became a different grocery store, Natural Pantry, which eventually outgrew the space and built its current, standalone location off 36th Avenue.
Fast forward to 2015, and Safeway got swallowed up by Albertsons. Federal regulators approved that deal after the companies agreed to divest 168 stores. 146 went to a small Washington grocery retailer called Haggen.
Haggen wasn’t successful, either. Within a year, Haggen sued Albertsons and accused it of sabotaging stores it bought. It got sued back by Albertsons and filed for bankruptcy. In the ensuing firesale, Albertsons ended up buying back many of its divested stores, and ultimately what remained of Haggen itself.
Di Suvero is also concerned about how unique Alaska’s supply chain is, particularly its heavy dependence on a single port. Di Suvero and other opponents question if C&S has the expertise and wherewithal to step in and run its new grocery stores successfully.
So critics think C&S is setting itself up for failure, like Haggen?
Yes.
C&S isn’t a national player in the world of retail groceries. It owns the Piggly Wiggly brand and runs some Piggly Wiggly stores directly, but most are independently owned and operated under a franchise license. It also runs 11 Grand Union markets.
But C&S is a big deal nationally in grocery wholesaling, supplying more than 7,500 supermarkets. Forbes says it’s an industry leader in supply chain innovation, the largest wholesale grocery supply company in the country and the eighth biggest privately held company in the country. So C&S is in a totally different league from Haggen.
That said, the Federal Trade Commission says C&S doesn’t have its own store brand product lines, loyalty programs or e-commerce platforms it needs to successfully compete.
Does Alaska figure prominently into the overall merger?
No.
Kroger and Albertsons combined have 36 stores in the state. That’s 11 Fred Meyers, and 24 Carrs or Safeways plus Crow Creek Mercantile in Girdwood. Across the country, they have about 5,000.
And unlike in the Safeway-Carrs merger in 1999, the governor’s office has been hands off. Gov. Mike Dunleavy has not weighed in. The state Department of Law, which has its own consumer protection unit, says it’s monitoring the merger and the Federal Trade Commission’s legal fight to stop it.
Outside of Alaska, eight states and the District of Columbia have joined the FTC’s lawsuit in federal court in Oregon.
And the attorneys general of Colorado and Washington have their own similar lawsuits.
What happens if the merger gets shot down?
There’s a lot invested in this merger. A reporter with WCPO in Cincinnati, where Kroger is headquartered, dug through financial filings and found that through March, the two parent companies had already spent $864 million in merger-related expenses.
WCPO also found that Kroger had agreed to pay Albertsons $600 million if the merger fails.
So that’s a big incentive for Kroger to appeal if these legal fights don’t go its way.
So what’s next?
The legal stuff.
Hearings in the FTC case at the U.S. District Court of Oregon begin Aug. 26. This case is important, but won’t necessarily make or break the merger. The judge there is supposed to rule on whether or not to pause the merger, while more substantive arguments go before an administrative law judge in Washington, D.C.
The trial in the Washington state court is scheduled to begin Sept. 16, and, separately, a Colorado state judge last month imposed his own order to pause the merger, pending a legal challenge there. That trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 30.
Jeremy Hsieh covers Anchorage with an emphasis on housing, homelessness, infrastructure and development. Reach him atjhsieh@alaskapublic.orgor 907-550-8428. Read more about Jeremyhere.
The state agency leading some of Alaska’s most polarizing development projects has approved a new communications budget, saying it needs to do a better job telling its own story amid attacks from critics.
The state-owned Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority is run by a former chief of staff to Gov. Mike Dunleavy and is charged with promoting economic growth and expanding natural resource extraction and exports.
It is leading work to develop state-owned oil leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and also hopes to build two controversial new roads to access mining prospects in Northwest Alaska and outside of Anchorage.
Those projects have drawn sharp opposition from conservation organizations and other critics, including lawsuits, critical op-eds and campaigns that have labeled the agency “Bad AIDEA” and caricatured its leaders.
At a meeting in Ketchikan this month, board members, with no public discussion, authorized AIDEA’s staff to spend up to $700,000 a year on a new communications budget — formalizing a plan that the agency says was previously budgeted inconsistently through spending on individual projects.
The new communications plan, the agency said in its formal resolution authorizing the spending, will “ensure proper public engagement, transparency, and stewardship of the authority’s mission.” The money could go toward trade shows and conferences, responding to media inquiries and “other communications-related needs,” according to the resolution.
The agency’s executive director, Randy Ruaro, referred questions about the plan to Dave Stieren, an AIDEA employee who ran an advertising agency and hosted a conservative talk radio show before joining the Dunleavy administration.
Stieren said he could not provide exact figures on AIDEA’s past communications spending, but he acknowledged that the new plan should allow the agency to meaningfully boost its public profile.
The $700,000 a year, he added, is a limit, and the agency will set a final budget through a request for proposals process.
“Mothership AIDEA has done, frankly, little to nothing on a consistent basis to tell our story,” Stieren said in an email — particularly when it comes to its loan programs that have helped finance tourism and hospitality businesses, like the Alaska Club fitness chain and Anchorage’s Bear Tooth pizza restaurant and theater.
“We’re far more than roads,” Stieren said. “But since we’ve really not promoted or showcased our efforts in traditional finance areas, I understand the narrative or lack thereof that folks may have.”
Stieren has also personally defended AIDEA on social media, including over the weekend — when he posted a conservative news website’s positive story about an agency-owned shipyard and said that “when commie libs attack AIDEA, they attack projects like this.”
AIDEA’s board chair, Bill Kendig, declined to answer questions about approval of the new communications budget when reached by phone.
At the Ketchikan meeting, one AIDEA critic, Melis Coady, credited the agency with formalizing communications spending as a “step toward accountability.” But she said that the plan doesn’t “deliver the transparency it describes” because it gives Ruaro, the executive director, authority to approve communications spending, and only requires that he report it to the board if asked.
“The authorization is broad, the dollar amount is undefined, and expenditures are approved solely by the executive director,” said Coady, who leads a conservation group called the Susitna River Coalition.
Ruaro, in an email, said AIDEA will issue reports on communications to board members “whether requested or not.”
Nathaniel Herz is an Anchorage-based reporter. Subscribe to his newsletter, Northern Journal, at northernjournal.com.
In exchange for living in what is perhaps the country’s most beautiful state, Alaskans sometimes have to do without: professional sports teams, Trader Joe’s and, well, sunlight for half the year. But we make up for it with the Iditarod, reindeer sausages and chasing the aurora borealis. In other words, we often have to make our own fun. And by “fun” I mean “beer.” Those words are interchangeable, right?
Beer is a big part of life for Alaskans. We hike with it, camp with it, boat with it, cook with it and pair it with foods like the stuffiest of sommeliers. We throw it monthly birthday parties like the First Tap events at Broken Tooth Brewing Co. (otherwise known as Bear Tooth Theatrepub and Moose’s Tooth Pub & Pizzeria), complete with national musical acts like Modest Mouse, Clinton Fearon, and Norah Jones. We even occasionally do yoga with it (at downtown’s Williwaw Social). In other words, we take it everywhere and we take it seriously.
Beers from the state’s biggest brewery, Alaskan Brewing Co. based in Juneau, might already be in your refrigerator if you live in one of the 25 states where it’s available. Established in 1986 by Marcy and Geoff Larson, it was the 67th independent brewery to open in the country. With a steady line of signature brews, including their most recent “Wildness” beer, it’s the most well-established of all the state’s breweries. Expect seasonal specialties that incorporate ingredients like cranberries, raspberries, locally roasted coffee, locally grown white wheat from the Matanuska-Susitna area and even Alaska spruce tips. Ubiquitous around Alaska, this is our Papa Beer, if you will (I’ll show myself out).
But Alaskan Brewing is just one out of the more-than 50 breweries, distilleries, meaderies and cideries in the state (for an excellent list visit brewersguildofalaska.org). And while almost half of them are in Anchorage or within a short drive of our state’s largest city (including the relatively populous communities of Girdwood, Eagle River, Palmer and Wasilla), some of our most remote ports of call and tiniest towns are also in on the brewing action (I’m looking at you, Cooper Landing Brewing Company in Cooper Landing, population 231).
The ever-expanding Denali Brewing Co. in Talkeetna (population 997) may be a small-town hero, but it’s anything but small. Their four signature beers — Mother Ale, Chuli Stout, Single Engine Red and the ever-popular Twister Creek IPA, as well seasonal brews like Slow Down Brown and Flag Stop Milepost #3 — are year-round mainstays of summer barbecues and winter bonfires around the state.
This brewery is also home to the more recently established Alaska Cider Works, Alaska Meadery (featuring “Razzery,” a mead made with raspberries, sour cherries and apples) and Denali Spirits (featuring vodka, gin, whiskey, and “smoke” whiskey), because when you’ve fermented one, why not ferment them all?
(Denali Spirits’ canned cocktails, especially their blueberry mojito, have been so popular in Anchorage that at one time there was a Facebook page largely dedicated to tracking them down. Luckily, supply has since caught up with demand.)
Some breweries are even more remote. Ports of call and island hopping here can be one way to get your fill of hops. Breweries can be found in Ketchikan (Bawden Street Brewing Co.), Kodiak (Kodiak Island Brewing & Still, Double Shovel Kodiak Cidery, and Olds River Inn), Homer (Homer Brewing Co. and Grace Ridge Brewing Co. for beer, and you can also check out Sweetgale Meadworks & Cider House for hard cider and locally sourced meads featuring ingredients like nagoonberry), Sitka (Harbor Mountain Brewing), Seward (Seward Brewing Co. and Stoney Creek Brewhouse), Valdez (Valdez Brewing and Growler Bay Brewing), and Skagway (Klondike Brewing Co. and Skagway Brewing Co.).
Of course, many trips to Alaska begin and end in Anchorage. And if, during your travels, you’ve foolishly left some beers untasted, you can make up for lost time in our state’s biggest city which boasts — let’s face it — a ridiculous number of exceptional craft breweries.
Downtown’s Glacier Brewhouse specializes in oak-aged English and American West Coast-style beers, 13 of them, from blondes to stouts. Beneath the floor of the Brewhouse is a “Wall of Wood” comprised of casks of special release beers that are conditioned in oak barrels once used to age wine and bourbon. The history of the oak imparts “mother tongue” flavor characteristics, like vanilla and coconut, into these limited edition brews. Opt for one of these unique beers or choose from their flagship choices like raspberry wheat, oatmeal stout, imperial blonde, Bavarian hefeweizen or a flight that includes them all.
Down the street is 49th State Brewing Co., which expanded into Anchorage from its original location in Healy, at the edge of Denali National Park and Preserve. If you are unable to visit their flagship location, where you can sip beer while playing bocce or horseshoes on the lawn, you can catch up with them here. There’s a unique selection that includes beers like Smok, a smoked lager, as well as seasonal offerings like the Tiger’s Blood Sour, an homage to shave ice described as ”ferociously fruity.” Or there’s “Apple Fritter Ale,” with hints of cinnamon, icing, caramel, and vanilla. This location also boasts some of the best views in Anchorage and an expansive outdoor rooftop patio.
Just about all of the full-service restaurants in downtown Anchorage proudly feature some variety of Alaskan beers. In the heart of downtown, Humpy’s Great Alaskan Alehouse prides itself on a huge selection of beers, both international and local. Tent City Taphouse offers a diverse and carefully curated list of 24 rotating local brews, including their house beer, Tent City Tangerine IPA brewed by Glacier Brewhouse. Tent City regularly hosts “Taste of the North” beer dinners featuring Alaskan brewers. One, in collaboration with Grace Ridge Brewing Company, featured smoked salmon canapes with Black Pepper IPA, classic beef Wellington with an Oystercatcher stout and roasted honey lamb chops with a Winter Cranberry Ale.
If you have transportation around the city, treat yourself to a brewery tasting-room tour. Found in unassuming little side streets in the more industrial areas of Anchorage, some of our best beers can be sipped and savored at the source. Finding these funky little spots can feel like being invited to a secret party. And it’s a glimpse into Anchorage’s most authentic beer culture.
In midtown, Onsite Brewing Co. has unique, small-batch brews in a funky relaxed environment. Further south, King Street Brewing Co., Turnagain Brewing, Cynosure Brewing, Magnetic North Brewing Company, Brewerks, and one of our newest, Ship Creek Brewing Company are all within a stone’s throw of one another. If you’re lucky, you might run into one of Anchorage’s popular food trucks parked outside, so you’ll have something to wash down with your flights. Depending on the day, you might find reindeer sausages, pad Thai, cheesesteaks or pupusas. On the weekends, Anchorage Brewing Company features a top-notch in-house pop-up restaurant, called Familia, with a rotating menu featuring local Alaskan ingredients.
One of the newest and furthest south breweries, while still in the Anchorage bowl, is Raven’s Ring Brewing Company, which is a brewery/winery and meadery. From a traditional IPA to a Concorde grape wine called Grape Juice to a rotating Vintner’s pour like Sweet Peach Jalapeno mead, this ambitious operation is challenging the notion that you can’t please everyone.
Other Anchorage points of interest for non-hoppy but still home-grown adult beverages include Anchorage Distillery, Zip Kombucha, Double Shovel Cidery and Hive Mind Meadery.
If your travels are over and you still haven’t had your fill, check out the Silver Gulch Brewing & Bottling Co. inside Terminal C at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport on your way out of town. An offshoot of the flagship Silver Gulch brewery in Fox, Alaska (about 10 miles north of Fairbanks), this location has a bar and restaurant, and a retail shop carrying growlers of their own brews as well as those of other Alaskan brewers and distillers. Last-minute souvenir shopping never tasted so good.
Before you start your great Northern beer safari, bear in mind that tasting rooms often have limited and varying hours, so always double-check before planning a visit.
Whether your travels take you to fine-dining restaurants, low-key alehouses or even rustic cabins in the woods, make like an Alaskan and fuel your adventures with one of our beloved, home-grown brews. When in Alaska, drink as the Alaskans do.
Mara Severin is a food writer who writes about restaurants in Southcentral Alaska for the Anchorage Daily News.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Coast Guard announced Thursday that the first two Arctic Security Cutters will be homeported in the State of Alaska. Anticipating delivery of the first Arctic Security Cutters by the end of 2028, the Coast Guard has begun planning to ensure necessary infrastructure and support are in place to receive two icebreakers. Ensuring these vessels are supported by trained and ready crews, and ready homeport facilities including housing, will be essential to delivering full, enduring operational capability required to meet emerging Arctic security challenges.
“Homeporting these two Arctic Security Cutters in Alaska is a decisive step forward in securing America’s Arctic frontier,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin. “I want to thank President Trump for his bold leadership and vision in directing this critical investment, as well as Senator Sullivan and the entire Alaskan Congressional delegation for championing the funding that made these icebreakers possible. These vessels will deliver the enduring operational presence our nation needs to protect sovereignty, deter foreign adversaries, and safeguard vital resources for the American people..”
The homeporting of the first two Arctic Security Cutters in Alaska builds on the historic expansion of the Coast Guard’s icebreaker fleet and underscores an unprecedented investment in the Arctic. This announcement marks a national milestone in U.S. Arctic capability, following contract awards for up to 11 Arctic Security Cutters. Fueled by $3.5 billion in funding in the Fiscal Year 2025 Reconciliation Bill and facilitated by a groundbreaking Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the United States and Finland in October 2025, the acquisition of Arctic Security Cutters will fulfill President Trump’s directive to rapidly deliver America’s newest icebreaker fleet.
“Homeporting Arctic Security Cutters in Alaska underscores the United States’ leadership as a maritime power in the Arctic,” said Adm. Kevin E. Lunday, commandant of the Coast Guard. “By strategically positioning these state-of-the-art icebreakers in Alaska, the Coast Guard will maximize our ability to defend our northern border and approaches, while reinforcing America’s maritime dominance in a crucial region of strategic importance.”
Through contract awards to Rauma Marine Constructions Oy of Rauma, Finland, Bollinger Shipyards Lockport, L.L.C., and Davie Defense, Inc. of Vienna, VA, the U.S. will immediately benefit from our Finnish partners’ icebreaker expertise while coordinating the onshoring of that expertise and shipbuilding to the United States. Under the MOU, Finland will construct up to four ASCs for the U.S Coast Guard. U.S. shipyards will build and deliver up to seven additional ASCs. Delivery of the first Arctic Security Cutters is expected by the end of 2028.
Arctic Security Cutters will form the backbone of a revitalized U.S. icebreaker fleet, strengthening American maritime dominance in the Arctic. Fielding specialized capabilities, these icebreakers will defend U.S. sovereignty, secure critical shipping lanes, protect energy and mineral resources, and counter foreign malign influence in the Arctic region. A robust icebreaker fleet will enable the Coast Guard to control, secure and defend U.S. Alaskan borders and Arctic maritime approaches, facilitate maritime commerce vital to economic prosperity and strategic mobility, and respond to crises and contingencies in the region.
Acquisition of Arctic Security Cutters supports the Coast Guard’s ongoing modernization, through which the Service is transforming into a more agile, capable and responsive fighting force.
Memorandum on ASC Homeporting
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