Shoppers will get a free 5-pound bag of sugar if they trade in their defunct Albertsons loyalty cards to celebrate the official takeover Monday of 34 Albertsons stores in Utah by Associated Food Stores and their conversion to Fresh Market.

Dick King, president of Fresh Market, said the Salt Lake City grocery cooperative created a new banner for the 34 stores because Minneapolis-based Supervalu Inc. -- which has nine Albertsons stores left statewide after the sale -- is dramatically shrinking its retail presence in Utah.

"So the Albertsons name wasn't available to us for use. The situation was different when we acquired Macey's, Dan's, Dick's and Lin's eight years ago, these were already independently-owned and operated and there was great brand equity with those names," said King, who was with Albertsons for 26 years prior to joining Associated Food in 2003.

Under the deal, the 34 stores including five in Utah County will be converted to Fresh Market by April. The stores are at 760 E. Main Street in Lehi, 135 E. Main Street in American Fork, 652 N. 800 East in Spanish Fork, and two in Provo at 560 W. Center Street and 2255 N. University Parkway.

The Fresh Market stores, which average about 46,000 square feet, will operate as corporate stores in a new division, Associated Fresh Market.

"We wanted something new, fresh and different," King said. "There will be similarities with the other corporate stores in that we sell also Western Family products, but we will do our own marketing and merchandising programs. Our employees will be wearing green uniforms."

In July, Associated had announced plans to acquire 36 stores, but two stores didn't pass muster.

One store in Tooele was pulled out of the deal in August after an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission found Associated Food's planned purchase of that store may pose anti-competitive price impacts, King said. The concern is that food costs may rise because of reduced competition in Tooele.

"The other Albertsons store in Kearns didn't fit our business model in terms of sales and renovation costs, nor was it to Albertsons' advantage to sell it to us," he said.

Associated Food now has a total of 56 company-owned stores, up from an existing 22. Its grocery cooperative membership will climb to 550 from the current 500, and its total employee base in Utah will jump to 8,000. Of the 8,000 workers, 6,500 are retail workers at Fresh Market, Macey's, Dan's, Dick's and Lin's. Around 2,700 former Albertsons workers were retained by Associated Food.

The new signage will be completed by April, King said. For now, banners saying "Now Locally-owned. Coming Soon, Fresh Market," will festoon the storefront beside the Albertsons signage. In addition to Western Family, Fresh Market will be carrying brands including Shur Saving, Natural Selections and Utah's Own Products.

"Albertsons didn't understand the local market. A lot of their decisions on buying, pricing and what items to carry in their stores are made out of Minnesota. But by being locally owned, we'll be making those decisions here," King said.

"We want to have fair, competitive prices. We'll not be the lowest on every item, but we will continue to fine tune our pricing over the next few months," he said. "We've already lowered prices on several thousand items last night. We have small signs throughout the stores that highlight the discounted prices."

After the sale, Albertsons, which has been in the Beehive state for nearly 60 years, will have nine stores left including two in Orem. The other stores are in West Jordan, Kearns, Tooele and St. George.

Even though SuperValu is selling six stores in Orem, West Jordan, Kearns and Tooele, Albertsons spokeswoman Lilia Rodriguez said the company has no plans to leave the Utah marketplace.

"We still have our three St. George stores, a support center in Salt Lake City, and our distribution center in Layton," she said.

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• 34 Albertsons become Fresh Market stores
• 34 Utah Albertsons stores to be converted to Fresh Market banner