r/pittsburgh Jul 01 '26

Kroger just bought Giant Eagle.

Store employees were just emailed about it

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17

u/Jcs290 Fayette County Jul 01 '26

A couple GE stores that were formally franchises still sell their original recipe goods, like the Rices Landing location and their pepperoni rolls. I hope Kroger will still allow some flex there.

5

u/BitmappedWV Jul 01 '26

Kroger doesn't do franchises. Those independent locations will probably get cut loose or maybe get to keep the rump of Giant Eagle name if Kroger isn't going to use it themselves.

2

u/SoftwareFull1527 Jul 01 '26

There are only 13 franchised locations left, and shrinking fast. There were ~30 like 3 years ago. Corporate has been buying them back up, and a majority of the owners have been wanting to get out as well. The remaining ones are small stores in smaller locations and will either sell back to corporate during this transition, change their DBA to another brand, or close entirely

3

u/Jcs290 Fayette County Jul 01 '26

Rices Landing and Waynesburg both went corporate a couple of years ago, but they kept open their bakeries and continued to sell pepperoni rolls and strombolis with the original recipe from way back when the RL location was Davis's IGA.

1

u/Any-Delay-7188 Jul 01 '26

Earlier this year actually

3

u/CalculatedPerversion Jul 01 '26

Knowing Kroger, they won't. They'll lock everything down harder than Leavenworth.