Safeway's arrival fuels grocery war

Safeway's arrival fuels grocery war

Mar. 13, 2001

NELSON BOYD of Teec Nos Pos reaches for some bargain Coke products while shopping at the new Safeway in Cortez on Monday. Wal-Mart also is offering 88-cent six-packs as the grocery-store competition heats up in Montezuma County. With three large supermarkets now in the city, locals hope that Cortez will draw more shoppers from surrounding areas such as southeast Utah and that the competition will keep prices low.

By Aspen C. Emmett
Journal Staff Writer

The grand opening of Safeway last week has undoubtedly had repercussions for the competition, but no one is sure how the battle for the buyer will play out in the long run among the three local supermarkets.

"We had a very, very successful grand opening and business has been very good since," said Safeway store manager Tom Land. "I can tell you that it was good, but I can’t tell you if we reached the numbers we expected. That’s against my company’s policy."

Wal-Mart assistant manager Judy Patterson said the Wal-Mart Supercenter was taking the Safeway addition in stride and adjusting accordingly.

"It’s kind of too soon, really, to know how it’s going to affect us," Patterson said. "I know the weekend was slow on sales, but I think it was slow throughout the town. With their grand opening, it’s bound to pull people who normally would have come here or City Market."

Patterson said Wal-Mart has been making promotional efforts in part as an attempt to keep up with the competition, but also as an acknowledgment of the supercenter’s first year in business.

"We celebrated our one-year anniversary the end of January . . . so it just seemed to time out perfectly," Patterson said. "It’s ‘Thank you for shopping with us for the last year; we love our supercenter and hope to keep you here.’"

Cortez Mayor Joe Keck said the addition of Safeway has the potential to bring the cost of groceries down across the board, making the marketplace more consumer-friendly but also tougher on the competing stores.

"I think it’s hard to tell how that will shake out, but it will hopefully get food prices more competitively priced," Keck said.

"I would think it’s going to be extremely competitive and I don’t know if it might shake one out. I certainly hope that doesn’t happen."

Keck said the wide selection will likely create a stronger pull on consumers from surrounding communities, generating more customers to spread among the three stores and more revenue from sales taxes for the city of Cortez.

"I think it will bring in more of a regional draw by adding such a major player to the marketplace," Keck said. "I think if our prices become really competitive as far as groceries are concerned, it will definitely bring more people here who might otherwise shop in Farmington — like Blanding, Monticello, Kayenta and throughout the regional trade area. I think we will definitely get some boost out of it."

Following in the footsteps of City Market, Safeway is also in the process of adding a gas station as part of its total shopping package, but also adding a convenience store and a car wash.

"That’s a definite," Land said. "We hope to have it started in April or maybe May."

Patterson said Wal-Mart has considered joining in with a gas station but couldn’t confirm it as a certainty.

"They’ve looked into it before and that’s why we didn’t have one to begin with," Patterson said. "They felt the area was saturated enough. But there’s always talk. I think they are re-evaluating — taking a look at the area — and seeing if it would be a good idea or not."

Keck said that as an independent business person he prefers to support other small, independent businesses but that the addition of gas pumps by large corporations again lowers prices for consumers.

"I think the City Market fueling center has had an impact of having much more competitively priced gasoline in Cortez," Keck said. "It’s the first time in years, that for the past few months our prices have been lower than the Durango prices. For most of my life it’s always been the reverse."

Despite the cheaper fuel prices, Keck is worried that small businesses will inevitably suffer.

"You might see some shake-out there over time just because the larger companies can buy in such volumes," he said. "I can’t imagine that the market is growing that much. I would say that’s definitely going to come out of other hides."

In the meantime, shoppers have the luxury of searching for the best shopping experience and it’s left to the supermarkets to fight out the rest.

"Naturally I’m kind of biased," Land said of Safeway. "But I think that we have a wonderful full-service grocery store, very competitively priced, very clean, giving very good service, running very good specials — and if you ask City Market or Wal-Mart, they’re going to say the same thing."