By Tamara Chuang | The Colorado Sun
As week two of the State of Colorado v. Kroger trial begins Tuesday (Monday is a state holiday), last week’s testimony gave onlookers a peek behind the corporate grocery curtain in Colorado.
If the merger moves forward, Albertsons would no longer exist in Colorado, as it hands most of its local stores, which include mostly Safeways, to a little-known grocer and food distributor called C&S Wholesale Grocers in New Hampshire. Lawyers with the state Attorney General’s Office questioned whether the small company with a spotty history managing acquisitions can handle the $2.9 billion divestiture. But C&S, whose chairman also cofounded Symbotic, a warehouse robotics company, has big plans to invest in the stores, lower prices and grow overnight from about two dozen supermarkets to more than 600.