Kroger said theft a reason for Everett Fred Meyer closure. Numbers say differently.

Published 3:23 pm Monday, August 18, 2025

EVERETT — Supermarket giant Kroger cited store theft as one of the reasons for closing the Fred Meyer store at 8530 Evergreen Way in Everett, the company said in a statement on Monday.

On Tuesday morning, crime statistics released by the Everett Police Department tell a different story.

The Evergreen Fred Meyer reported 12 cases of shoplifting in 2024, down from 24 in 2023. In 2020, the store reported 68 cases of shoplifting.

Through July of this year, six incidents of shoplifting were reported.

In addition to Everett, a Fred Meyer in Kent will also be shuttered, said Kroger spokesperson Tiffany Sanders in a statement.

Richard Smith, a spokesman for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 3000, said the union was told the closures were planned for either Oct. 16 or Oct. 17. Sanders said the closures were scheduled for October but did not give a specific date.

“Unfortunately, due to steady rise in theft and a challenging regulatory environment that adds significant costs, we can no longer make these stores financially viable,” Sanders wrote Monday afternoon.

Workers at both stores will be offered transfers to other stores, Sanders said.

During an earnings call on June 25, Kroger’s interim CEO Ronald Sargent had said that the chain had plans to close 60 stores that were not meeting economic targets.

“Unfortunately, today, not all our stores are delivering the sustainable results we need,” he said at the time.

Despite the closures, company officials said at the time they were planning 30 new stores in high-growth areas.

In July, Kroger announced plans to close the QFC store in Mill Creek as soon as Sept. 3.

Cincinnati-based Kroger operates more than 2,700 stores across 35 states.

The announcement comes two years after the managers of the Evergreen Way Fred Meyer and another Everett location appealed to the Everett City Council for help in areas they said were becoming increasingly dangerous around their stores.

During a city council meeting on Nov. 6, 2022, Tyler Stumpf, manager of the Fred Meyer at the Everett Evergreen Way location at the time, voiced concerns about theft and apparent drug use outside his store to the council. Stumpf reported an “open-air drug market” in a vacant former bank adjacent to the store parking lot and claimed people often steal goods from his store as payment to dealers operating there.

On Tuesday, Everett police spokesperson Natalie Given said police had conducted extra patrols around the Fred Meyer location on Evergreen Way from January 2023 to March 5 of this year. Officers would patrol four times a day for 15 minutes each.

Rick Smith, a spokesman for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 3000, said the Everett store closure raises serious concerns about Kroger abandoning working-class communities while potentially opening stores in areas with higher demographics.

He said both the Everett store and the Kent store, according to union research, are located in zip codes whose income ranks below their county’s respective median household incomes.

“Our concern is that this will create food deserts in our neighborhoods, making it harder for working-class people to get food,” he said.

Randy Diamond: 425-339-3097; randy.diamond@heraldnet.com.