New Signs Erected At Former Albertsons Stores

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ New signs were being erected Saturday on the last few Albertsons grocery stores in the Oklahoma City area as the stores changed hands to new owners. <br/><br/>Homeland Stores and Williams

Saturday, August 4th 2007, 2:00 pm

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ New signs were being erected Saturday on the last few Albertsons grocery stores in the Oklahoma City area as the stores changed hands to new owners.

Homeland Stores and Williams Discount Foods have been rebranding metro-area Albertson's stores for almost two weeks.

Associated Wholesale Grocers, a grocery co-op and distributor, bought 23 Oklahoma Albertsons stores in June, along with the retailer's Fort Worth distribution center. After a confidential bidding process, co-op members Homeland and Williams announced plans to purchase 13 metro-area stores.

In Tulsa, Bartlesville, Stillwater and Ponca City, nine former Albertsons will open under a new name _ Food Pyramid _ following a change in ownership to Springfield, Mo.-based RPCS, Inc.

``We changed three last week, and one today and two more Thursday and Friday,'' Jeff Williams, co-owner of Williams Discount Foods, said Wednesday. His Tuttle-based grocery chain acquired six Albertsons grocery stores.

``We're keeping the blue lettering,'' he said. ``The reason is, you don't want to change the pharmacy and the food and the drug (signs) that's already up there. We've done that in a lot of stores we've taken over.''

It's also cheaper to do so, Williams said.

``These are beautiful stores. All we want to do is make them affordable for people to shop in,'' he said.

Besides the pricing structure, not much will change. Williams said.

``The pricing has dropped dramatically,'' he said. ``All your cosmetics and general merchandise has gone down.''

Shoppers also may notice that beer is missing from the product mix at the new Williams stores. Williams doesn't sell beer in any of its 15 stores.

``My mother asked us not to in 1988, when we were formed, and we honored her words, and we will continue to honor her,'' he said.

Homeland Stores acquired seven stores in the transaction, with a goal from the beginning to make as few changes as possible. For the most part, they've reached that goal, said company spokeswoman Kelly Epperson.

``We admired the job Albertson's was doing in the market. They ran great stores,'' she said. ``The customers were thrilled with the service, and we wanted to continue that.''