20 February 2016 (08:49 UTC-07 Tango 01)/01 Esfand 1394/11 Jumada al-Ula 1437/13 Geng Yin 4714
Idaho based employee owned anti-unAmerican corporate America grocery store chain WinCo Foods continues to expand, while many publicly traded corporate grocery stores shutdown.
Carrollton, Texas (home of model kit builder’s iconic Squadron Mail Order), is about to get a new WinCo supermarket in a recently abandoned Target store. Reports out of The Lone Star State say WinCo now has six food stores (since invading Texas in 2014) and is planning two more in Arlington and Fort Worth. The Carrollton store isn’t expected to be ready until 2017, the vacant Target store must be torn down first.
In Utah, WinCo is constructing a new store in South Salt Lake, expected to open by the end of the year. As many as 2-hundred jobs are expected and city administrators hope WinCo will make their top ten list of local taxpayers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently declared South Salt Lake a ‘food desert’, meaning residents had limited access to food.
Speaking of food insecurity, in the not-so Golden State of California (see my Job Losses reports), a Ventura WinCo was hit by middle aged shoplifters who threatened a security guard with a tazer. Police are searching for them, security cam vid was captured.
In Grants Pass, Oregon, WinCo opened its 105th store. It’s smaller than the normal WinCo supermarket, yet has managed to hire 150 locals (and transferred at least 11 people from other WinCo stores). Already the new WinCo has been hit by a food shoplifter. The 25 years old woman is a meth and heroin drug addict, police had her hospitalized for an infection on her arm.
The Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals is about to hold a debate over plans to open a new WinCo in Albany. Supposedly the issue is over the use of windows, however, a complaint was filed by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. Unions are anti-employee owned businesses, because employee owned businesses are a bigger threat to unions than unAmerican corporate America. Employee owned operations get better benefits, and pay far less in ‘dues’ than union shops.
It should be noted that Oregon suffered the mass shutdowns of Washington based Haggen grocery stores in 2015 (connected to the Albertsons-Safeway merger).
In Edmonds, Washington, city administrators have revised zoning rules to allow retail development next to the local WinCo. Previously, in the 1990s the WinCo location was a Top Foods grocery store. Local news reports did not indicate whether the WinCo had any influence on the city’s decision to change the zoning.
Washington state is known to be a haven for anti-WinCo-ites. In Moses Lake an anti-employee owned business organization is suing the city to stop the potential construction of a WinCo, accusing the city of not complying with the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) process. The city has yet to even approve WinCo’s request to set up shop.
It should be noted that Washington saw the demise of its Haggen grocery store chain in 2015.
Back in Idaho, the co-founder of WinCo (originally Waremart) was honored during the Twin Falls Rotary Club meeting. Ronald L. “Bud” Williams died last month, of acute myeloid leukemia, he was 87 years old. Local Rotary members say over the past 40 years Bud always helped with the local Xmas celebrations. His leukemia came on suddenly, being diagnosed the week before he died.
On a national level, WinCo Foods recently promised to sell only Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) rated farmed seafood. By the end of this year all their farmed seafood should be three star rated BAP, by the end of 2017 it’ll be four start rated.
Currently WinCo Foods employs more than 15-thousand people, all part owners of the grocery chain.
Employee owned WinCo is the new business model of the 21st Century!
WinCo expanding big into Arizona! Delays caused by Arizona aesthetics cops!