Price Chopper vs. Wegmans Supermarkets
Spend a lifetime in your Saratoga Springs Price Chopper supermarket and you might overhear but a murmur—while Price Chopper markets abound in Saratoga (we have three!), upstate New York’s other supermarket titan, Wegman’s, is entirely absent.
That murmur thus begs the question: why is Price Chopper Saratoga’s dominant supermarket? Where is Wegman’s, western New York’s foremost market?
The same whispers haunt Wegman’s—say, in Buffalo or Rochester: why do no Price Choppers exist nearby? Why do Price Choppers appear exclusively in eastern New York?
Steeped in legend, ancient New York lore holds that Price Chopper and Wegman’s once struck a pact; a gentleman’s agreement. The culinary giants allegedly agreed not to breach each other’s territory: Price Chopper reserved eastern New York, while Wegman’s expanded in the west. But is this mere mythology?
Fear not, friends.
Skidmore’s GIS Center is here to examine the rumors and hearsay—to map the madness.
For this week’s mystery map, the GIS Center has mapped New York’s Price Chopper–Wegman’s distribution.
Our map illustrates that the two chains have clearly limited their eastern and western expansions, respectively, to a rough longitudinal line near Syracuse. Despite this pattern, however, spokespeople from both Price Chopper and Wegman’s deny the noted gentleman’s agreement. Those representatives suggest that no pact or code prevents their companies’ expansions into respective eastern or western territory.
Despite this denial, however, we at the GIS Center remain curious—the debate continues.
What are your thoughts? We would love hear your opinions and insights in the comments section.
We hope that you found this mystery map interesting, stimulating, and (most importantly) difficult to crack.
Congrats to Amanda Callanan for the first correct guess on this one!!!
References/Further Reading:
http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2008/04/02/wegmans-price-chopper-the-real-deal
3 comments
Kim says:
Dec 9, 2011
I think Price Chopper could use a little more competition. I love Target and their prices on some food items are cheaper than PC. Also love Hannaford for their quality. What I would really like to see is a Shop Rite in the Saratoga area. Then PC would get a run for their money!!
Mike says:
Jan 27, 2012
As a former resident of the Capital Region who now resides in Central/Western New York, I came upon this site after a curious google search. I have to say that Wegman’s blows PC out of the water in every department. There is a reason that people who transplant out of this area say that their one major comfort in going “home” is Wegman’s. However, it would be a very interesting study to take a look at the localized demographics of Wegman’s versus Price Chopper locations. General observation (no substantive data here) leads towards Wegman’s leaving and avoiding low-income areas, while PC tends to stay in them. I smell a research paper!
Moving Home says:
Mar 21, 2012
That seems like an interesting try for giving an explanation using a mere myth or logical based reasoningm but the topic is really curious,when thinking about it. And I am agree with the idea of Mike from the previous comment, who suggests look to be taken at the localized demographics of Wegman’s opposing to Price Chopper’s locations and prevailing in the low income areas. Thanks for providing such post though!