Merger may mean Farmington Safeway grocery stores to be sold

The sale to C & S Wholesale Grocery is part of the proposed merger between Safeway parent company Kroger and Albertsons. The merger will not affect Farmington's Albertsons and Smiths grocery stores. The merger's divestiture plan may also result in the sale of the Albertsons grocery store at 31 College Drive in Durango and the Safeway at 1580 E. Main Street in Cortez.

More details were released about how a proposed merger between two major grocery chains will impact food shoppers in the Four Corners.  Grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons have proposed merging their two companies.  Critics of the merger say it will create a grocery monopoly.  The companies have now released a divestiture plan, which would sell 579 stores in 18 states to a new, competing company.  Four of those stores are located in the Four Corners:

In Farmington, that includes the city's two Safeway stores, the Safeway in Cortez, CO, and the Albertsons in Durango, CO.  These stores would be sold to C & S Wholesale Grocery, which already operates 160 retail locations and supplies more than 7,500 retail stores, supermarkets and military bases.  C & S operates stores under the names Piggly Wiggly and Grand Union.

The merger is still far from a done deal.  Several legal challenges have been made to stop the merger, including action by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission).