Metz, The Social Concept

Walgreens Prepping To Compete With Big Grocery Stores, Sell Fresh Food

January 26, 2010

According to Bloomberg, it looks like Walgreen Co. is chatting up food manufacturers like Unilever, Nestle
and Sara Lee – to white-label and also sell at Walgreens stores.

“Everyone is time-starved and we have the most convenient 7,000 locations in the US,” Bryan Pugh, the company’s vice
president of merchandising, told Bloomberg. “They’re on-the-way-home destinations that are easy to get in and out of and will
provide a good value.”

According to the story , Walgreens hasn’t set an exact timetable for the program, but they’re preparing to engage and compete .

Bloomberg stated that ex-Tesco employee Pugh is about to hire someone to run the company’s fresh food program. Wonder where he’ll get his strategic orientation from?

Some analysts are lukewarm. Andrew Wolf, a Richmond, Virginia-based analyst with BB&T Capital Markets said: “If they can get consumer acceptance, this would be good for sales,” said , which recommends that investors buy the shares. “Consumers aren’t used to buying salads from a drugstore chain. That would have to change.”

Target Stores followed a similar strategy in recent years by opening 108 stores in their PFresh chain. They plan to have 350 stores open by late 2010.

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