so the big guy is now buying Giant Eagle–how do you feel about that Ohio/Pennsylvania customers? Good or bad? Why?
Was Gwaihir consulted? 
In general I find Kroger better than average.
I don’t expect it’ll make much difference? A big grocery store is a big grocery store. Right now, there are a few things I buy there because I can’t get them at Aldi. I expect that will be true after this merger, too.
As is always the case with grocery stores, the history part of their Wikipedia page is aaze of twisty passages:
This is even more so than with most industries, I think, because of the back and forth with buying parts of each other.
Kroger is the biggest pure supermarket group in the US, Albertsons is the second biggest. Both of them have 20-25 different store brands. But Walmart, Amazon, and Costco all sell more groceries and I suspect their market share continues to increase. I was surprised to read that Aldi actually has the most stores in the US of any brand.
Does that include Trader Joes?
More than three times as many Aldi than TJs. 2700 vs 656.
I believe he’s referencing the fact that Aldi Nord owns Trader Joe’s.
Technically, Trader Joe’s is a sister company to one of the two Aldi companies (Aldi Nord); both companies have the same private ownership.
Aldi grocery stores in the U.S. are operated by a different company, Aldi Süd, which is closely allied with Aldi Nord (the two were originally started by two brothers), but legally and financially separate for the past 60 years.
And even without counting Trader Joe’s, Aldi still has the most stores in the U.S. The cite below shows the top 10 by number of stores; Aldi is #1 and Trader Joe’s is #7.
Source: 10 Largest grocery chains in the United States in 2026 | ScrapeHero