Grocery giant Kroger has long drooled over acquiring Albertsons, for the simple reason that competition drives prices towards equilibrium and away from rent-seeking. When Kroger published the list of (Albertsons-owned) Jewel-Osco and (Kroger-owned) Mariano's stores that would remain open in Chicago, magically most of the Mariano's stores didn't make the cut—including the big one just 400 meters from my house.
Today, US District Court Judge Adrienne Nelson (I-OR) blocked the merger, probably killing it for good:
In a decision filed in Oregon federal court Tuesday, Nelson found in favor of the US Federal Trade Commission. The agency had argued that the proposed tie-up violates US antitrust law and that a divestiture of hundreds of stores to C&S Wholesale Grocers Inc. wouldn’t do enough to replace the lost competition.
Nelson’s decision is a major victory for the FTC and its outgoing Chair Lina Khan, who came under harsh criticism from conservatives and business groups for stepped-up antitrust enforcement under the Biden administration.
Ultimately, both chains will likely close some stores, but based on their own independent analyses aimed at comparative advantage, not based on a unified analysis aimed at rent-seeking. This is a good result.
Not that it should surprise anyone, but brewing giants like InBev and MillerCoors aren't buying craft brewers to distribute them more widely. Just the opposite:
[T]he Department of Justice and regulators in California were investigating whether InBev, which makes Budweiser and Bud Light, was buying up beer wholesalers to curb sales of craft beers in bars and grocery stores.
“When a big brewery buys an independently-owned distributor they would evaluate each one of those brands and not keep all of them,” said Tom McCormick, executive director of the California Craft Brewers Association and a former beer distributor. “The bulk of their attention would be on their in-house brands.”
Even as the big players merge, they may not be able to run ahead of consumer tastes. In the last 10 years many Americans have cut back on beer in favor of wine and liquor. And though InBev is very profitable, its beers have been losing market share as more people buy imported and craft beer. [Brooklyn Brewery founder Steve] Hindy said that’s because smaller brewers are just more single-minded about taste. “We make beer,” he said. “They make money.”
The craft brewing phenomenon terrifies companies like InBev because it's literally impossible for them to compete with micros. Once InBev buys your micro, it's no longer micro. You can't scale a micro up very far, either, or it ceases to be a micro. (See, e.g., Boston Brewing Co. and Goose Island.)