Pardon the Disruption is a column that looks at the forces shaping food retail.
When I was a kid, my family moved back and forth between the cities of Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky, meaning I grew up with a deep appreciation for college hoops and horse racing. It also means I was never very far from a Kroger supermarket.
The Bluegrass State’s two largest metropolitan areas are indeed “Kroger Country,” as Supermarket News put it 15 years ago. It seemed like every neighborhood had a store. And all the sports facilities, from my Little League field to Rupp Arena, where the University of Kentucky Wildcats play basketball, had Kroger signs. In 2017, the college football stadium I walked to on so many game days was renamed Kroger Field…