Jesse Jackson brings Kroger protest to HQ in Cincinnati
The Rev. Jesse Jackson is bringing his call for a Kroger boycott to the company's corporate hometown on Tuesday.
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Responding to the outcry over Kroger's shuttering underperforming stores that serve minority communities, Jackson last week called for a boycott of the nation's largest supermarket chain.
"Kroger in the heart of the black community pulled out – it created a food desert," Jackson told The Enquirer on Monday. "It has a negative impact on the community."
Tentative local plans call for a protest in front of Kroger's Downtown headquarters and a press conference in front of the closed supermarket in Walnut Hills, shuttered last year after years of losses.
Besides repeating his calls for a national Kroger boycott, Jackson will also speak with The Enquirer and community leaders on Tuesday to discuss potential disenfranchisement of the city’s black community amid the proposed FC Cincinnati stadium deal.
Jackson will also express support for embattled City Manager Harry Black and to support voter registration efforts before primaries in May.
Late Monday, Kroger defended its store closure decisions, saying must turn a profit in order to serve customers.
"Because we operate a ‘penny profit’ business, we must sometimes make tough decisions in order to keep our prices low for all customers," Kroger said in a statement, adding no jobs were lost after it cut the Walnut Hills store or three recent closures in Memphis. The company pledged to stay "an active community citizen" and added it was "always open to suggestions and dialogue."
Kroger closed its 954 E. McMillan St. store last spring after 34 years of operation – more than 20 of them unprofitable. Company officials said the store was projected to lose $900,000 last year if they kept it open on top of the nearly $5 million it had lost since 2010.
The Walnut Hills closure coincided with the reopening of an expanded Kroger Marketplace store in Corryville 1.3 miles away.
Kroger also plans to close its Over-The-Rhine store at 1420 Vine St. when it opens its Downtown store at East Court and Walnut streets in 2019.
After years of losses, Kroger to close Walnut Hills store
As digital competition heated up for supermarkets, Kroger has retooled its store spending in recent years.
Two years ago, Kroger announced plans to spend more than $4 billion in capital expenditures in 2016 – much of it on supersizing supermarkets into Marketplaces as well as refreshing, relocating or refurbishing physical stores.
Those plans were pared back to $3 billion initially amid a price war with Walmart and deflation woes, then digital juggernaut Amazon's 2017 takeover of Whole Foods. Kroger, Walmart and other grocers have been scrambling since last summer, rolling out their own digital strategies as Amazon expands home delivery of supermarket staples.
While Kroger is still spending $3 billion a year on its physical stores, more of that money has been moved toward ramping up functions that support digital sales. Kroger now offers its buy-online, pickup-at-the-store ClickList service to more than a third of its stores. Kroger is also ramping up partnerships across the country to offer home delivery services – now available in 45 major U.S. markets.
Kroger delivers groceries to your home in 45 cities