If you haven’t been hanging around the blog Forum this week, you might not have heard that Kroger has sold off all of its Rockford, Illinois-area Hilander stores to another local competitor, Schnucks. I taught two Super-Couponing workshops in the Rockford area today, and overwhelmingly, the Hilander shoppers I spoke with are very upset by this change. Schnucks already has a presence in Rockford (Logli stores, which Schnucks bought out a few years ago) but their prices are higher and their promotions not nearly as great as Hilander’s.
I always enjoyed shopping at Hilander, because in addition to doubling coupons, Kroger always had a lot of instant-savings and Catalina promotions for shoppers to take advantage of. After my classes today, I figured I’d run in and try to do a round of their “Buy 10, Save $5” that’s still running in the current ad.
But when I walked into the store…
I quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen. With 50% off all Kroger-branded merchandise and 25% off everything else in the store, the Cherry Valley Hilander was pretty decimated. (I hope some of you got to do the “Buy 10, Save $5” with an extra 25% off everything though… wow!) Other than the pharmacy department and the liquor department, most of the shelves, fridge cases and freezer cases were bare.
So, a coupon trip wasn’t really a possibility. But there was a sign in the bakery that everything on the tables in the center was .75. It’s hard to resist fresh bakery items when they’re pretty cheap…
So I picked up a loaf of ciabatta bread, some croissants, two pound cakes, some sandwich rolls, King’s Hawaiian buns, some lemon butter cookies (that were stickered Buy One, Get One Free too..!) some hoagie rolls, and a 8″ x 8″ strawberry “party cake.” (What are we celebrating? Spending $6.75 on all of this!)
All of the Hilander stores will close at 4:00pm tomorrow, September 25th. According to Schnucks’ press release, Schnucks will reopen the Hilander Roscoe, Cherry Valley, Mulford and 11th Street locations at 8:00am on Wednesday, September 28. The Hilander Main, Rural and Alpine stores will reopen at 8:00am. on Thursday, September 29th.
rockandrollallnite says
Bakery can be so expensive some times that at those prices it is nice to splurge and get some treats. Even though you didn’t get to coupon shop I think you did great. Ciabatta bread is like $3.59 a loaf at Dominick’s!
HappyMom88 says
Anyone that has been in Rockford long enough knows Logli’s and Hilander’s histories. They started out as local family stores and grew into family chains. Eagle and Jewel tried to make it, but soon closed their stores. I think Dominicks was interested in coming to Rockford at one time as well. Then, Kroger and Schnucks came into the picture. They bought out the family chains and kept the family names in hopes to keep all the loyal customer’s and their business.
Both stores became pretty pricey. Most of my family went to Aldi (which soon closed), Woodmans (when they opened up), Super Wal-Mart or Valli Produce.
After I took one of Jill’s classes in Crystal Lake, I told my family in Rockford about the class and got them hooked on Jill’s super couponing site. They started to shop Hilanders again.
Now, I don’t know what they are going to do. Most likely, they will go back to shopping the old way. However, if they are smart, they may want to flier shop at Wal-Mart. Since, Wal-Mart will match prices, they may get some better deals in the long run. I used to shop that way when I lived in Arkansas before Catalinas were invented. It was a blast. I would just gather up all my fliers and coupons, compare prices on sales items, circle the products on each one that I was interested in purchasing, and make a list (with reference to the store flier). Then, I would shop off my list. When I got to the checkout, I would show the flier and the sale price for each item I was purchasing. One-stop shopping, it was great, and it saved me a lot of time and money.
It will be interesting to see how Schnucks pans out.