After the merger between two grocery giants, Albertsons and Kroger, fell through at the end of 2024 and Albertsons sued Kroger in December, Albertsons’ executives are now focused on moving on. The supermarket chain raised its profit forecast and its CEO talked up investments meant to weather competition from bigger retailers, reported Reuters.

Now Albertsons is “looking to build its digital sales and retail media business to pull in shoppers to fend off competition from bigger retailers like Walmart and Kroger that have taken market share,” wrote Reuters.

According to the news outlet, CEO Vivek Sankaran acknowledged during the company's first post-earnings call in more than two years that “a mass retailer and a club retailer” are growing much faster than Albertsons. He said Albertsons must compete with them and perform better to gain market share overall.

Albertsons is also “turning towards its retail media business to run targeted media campaigns and increase customer spend and is looking to deliver $1.5 billion in savings over the next three years,” according to Reuters.

The grocer and Kroger could turn to “fast-growing and profitable advertising ventures to tackle the competition and generate advertising revenue from big food companies and consumer product makers,” analysts said in December.

Kroger had previously promised to lower grocery prices by $500 million at Albertsons Companies locations when the merger was first proposed.