BELLINGHAM, WA - Haggen is now 16 locations into its 25 store openings for San Diego, California, and with the exception of some minor growing pains is reportedly seeing success.

“When a company is required to divest stores, like what Safeway and Albertsons did, they prefer to sell to a weak retailer that will most likely fail,” David J. Livingston, Founder and Analyst of DJL Research, told the San Diego Union Tribune. “My hunch is they are counting on Haggen's failing. They want to make sure that whoever they sell to will be an ineffectual competitor.”

But despite having a pricing glitch when it initially opened, with numbers higher than expectations for both the company and the consumers, Haggen Pacific Southwest CEO Bill Shaner reports a friendly reception.

“While no one – customers or Haggen – were happy with the [price] issue, we still received plenty of positive feedback from customers who were thrilled with many of the initial changes we made in the stores,” Shaner said, according to the report.

The retailer has made significant produce-related changes since the opening of these new stores. These changes include doubling the amount of organic produce the offered, as well as providing healthier, better quality salads among the more than 1,000 new products added.

As for the prices, the numbers have now reportedly smoothed out, and Shaner told the Union Tribune that the company regularly checks competitive prices to make sure it maintains a range of a few cents on similar items.

“In the subsequent days and weeks, we made great strides in [fixing the issue] – thousands of prices were lowered as we worked through the system glitch,” Shaner said. “We’re at a point now where the pricing represents our desired market position – a competitive, fair offering.”

Haggen is also reaching out to local communities in California, according to a press release, having recently donated one million pounds of food to local food banks, $100,000 to 100 charity partners as part of its campaign to open 100 stores in 100 days throughout California, Arizona, and Nevada.

New Haggen stores opened in the following California locations last week:

• Rancho Mirage and
• San Diego
• Palm Desert
• Coronado
• La Mesa

The first Arizona openings will take place on May 28th, according to the release, while California will see eight more Haggen stores open throughout the month of June.