National grocery giant Kroger has decided to reunite its Dallas and Houston divisions, in a familiar move for anyone who’s been watching the Texas grocery scene long enough. The Houston and Dallas divisions originally started as separate chains. Henke & Pillot of Houston was purchased by Kroger in 1955, and Wyatt’s of DFW was purchased in 1958. The stores were allowed to operate with a great degree of freedom compared to most other chains Kroger had previously acquired. Kroger would also acquire the Louisiana-based Child’s Foods and Big Chain Stores, which were placed under the control of Henke & Pillot. For years, the divisions would operate as independent entities until 1998. Just before the start of the year, Kroger’s then-current DFW president announced his retirement. To keep the ship afloat, Kroger decided to merge DFW into Houston and Louisiana, creating the Southwest division (or KMA, as Kroger likes to call it). During this time, the division would be led by Bob Zincke, who had been working magic with Signature stores in the Houston division for years by this point. Even with Zincke moving up to higher management, the Southwest division of Kroger would see many new advancements, like the proliferation of Marketplace stores. However, in 2015 Kroger decided to split these two divisions, which is how we’ve ended up in the situation we are now in. Just a few days ago, Laura Gump, president of Kroger’s Houston division for the past few years, announced her retirement, and Kroger revealed plans to reunite the divisions once again. While we do know that DFW’s current President will remain in charge of the new operations, further details, such as whether Houston or DFW will be the base of operations, have yet to be published. It does seem clear that Kroger is banking on this concept working like it did nearly 30 years ago.
