Albertsons Restructuring Western Divisions
Albertsons is reorganizing its internal structure, combining its Intermountain Division, which includes Montana and a large portion of Wyoming, with its Denver division, which includes Colorado and surrounding areas.
News of the changes was first reported by BoiseDev, which received a copy of an internal Albertsons memo penned by company COO Susan Morris.
With the two divisions combining, Intermountain Division head John Colgrove is leaving the company after 47 years. The new Mountain West Division will be led by Brad Street, the current lead for the grocer’s Seattle operations.
Additionally, Albertsons is organizing the company into three regions — East, West, and California.
An Albertsons spokesperson confirmed the moves to Progressive Grocer, a sister publication of Store Brands.
“As we continue to evolve and enhance our retail operations, a core part of that effort is ensuring our organizational structure properly enables strong local operational excellence across the regions we serve and also leverages our size and scale,” the spokesperson said. “As such, we recently made some divisional leadership updates, placing some of our best leaders in new roles and providing new opportunities for our team, as we continue to deliver on our strategy to earn Customers for Life.”
News of the consolidation of divisions comes weeks after Albertsons reduced staffing levels at its Boise, Id., headquarters. The job cuts impacted employees in its corporate and division support officers. The company is also laying off more than 150 Safeway corporate workers in California.
The divisional restructuring and headquarters job cuts follow the blocked Kroger/Albertsons merger by a federal judge who in December agreed with the Federal Trade Commission’s view that the marriage of the two grocery giants would have a negative impact on competition in the traditional supermarket channel.
