The owner of Malvern-based grocery chain, Acme, is selling its company to Kroger for $20 billion. Kroger will be accruing Acme-owner Albertsons’ $5 billion debt in the merger, writes Joseph DiStefano for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

This merger combines the U.S.’s second- and third-largest grocers, just behind Walmart.

Although grocery store workers may have traded over to warehouse and delivery companies to earn higher wages during the height of the pandemic, Wendell Young, president of UFCW Local 1776, which represents 35,000 workers in Pa., noticed that facilities like Amazon have slowed down on hiring and building new warehouses.

“A lot of young people who left have come back,” Young said. “Amazon’s been laying people off and closing facilities. GoPuff has been laying people off. But our members continue to work and get our wage increases, and both Kroger and Albertsons have been paying our members’ increased health-care costs and increases to retirement plans.” 

Kroger’s Chief Executive Rodney McMullen said in a statement that this merger would allow Kroger to better compete with “nonunion” Walmart.

The deal is meant to be closed in early 2024.

Read more about this merger at The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in October 2022.