Goodbye CDM Albertsons. Hello Haggen.

A small northwest grocery chain is about to become a big player on the national scene with this week’s acquisition of 146 Albertsons and Safeway stores, including your neighborhood Albertsons on Coast Highway. The acquisition is a bit of serendipity for Haggen, which was able to capitalize on the divestment process caused by the Federal Trade Commission’s review of the Albertsons-Safeway merger.

Theoretically, the acquisition will allow the chain to move into Southern California by inheriting the customer bases of existing grocery store’s in the community. The company announced plans to take over 11 Vons and Albertsons stores in Orange County, including stores in Irvine, Corona Del Mar, Laguna Beach, Laguna Niguel, Mission Viejo, Trabuco Canyon, Ladera Ranch, Tustin and Yorba Linda. The change is expected to occur in the first half of 2015.

“We warmly welcome these new employees and stores into the Haggen family. The stores are well run and very successful, thanks to the dedicated store teams,” said John Clougher, Haggen CEO, Pacific Northwest. “We want to retain these existing teams while allowing our growing company to build on their past successes. We plan to adopt the best practices of our new stores to offer a superior shopping experience for our valued customers in all of our stores.”

• Photo Credit: Haggen press kit.