Everything is bigger in Texas, even our options for grocery stores. In a state dominated by H-E-B, it might seem intimidating for others to try to compete. The homegrown company has earned a cult status here for its quality private brands, decent prices, and keen understanding of Texas culture. But Kroger, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary in Houston this year, is up for the challenge. In the past decade, the national chain has acquired Murray’s Cheese, added in-store wine bars and barbecue joints, and opened several Hispanic-centric locations to stay competitive.

Houston’s ties with Kroger go further back than you’d think: The store first entered the Houston market with the acquisition of Henke & Pillot in May 1955. Prior to this, Henke & Pillot had served as one of Houston’s very first grocery store chains. In the seven decades since, Kroger has worked to localize its stores to fit Houston shoppers. From an outsider looking in, it might seem like every store is the same, but dive deeper and you’ll realize each location has a touch of the neighborhood reflected in its items.

Garret Fairchild, head of deli and bakery merchandising at Kroger, helps with this localization. Prior to taking on his current role in 2004, Fairchild helped launch Kroger’s partnership with Houston-based Japanese Food Express in 1996. What started as a small relationship with a local company has since blossomed into a national powerhouse. Kroger now sells fresh sushi each day with local and seasonal items, including a Houstonian roll and a San Antonio roll. Kroger’s sushi selection is so vast that analysts reported in 2023 it was the biggest seller of sushi in the US. According to the findings, Kroger sells about 40 million pieces of sushi in a year.

Kroger also acquired Murray’s Cheese in 2017, a famous New York cheese shop the company had been partnering with since 2008. The purchase made Murray’s the de facto cheese counter at many Kroger locations, bringing in better selections than competitors like H-E-B. Fairchild notes that some of the cheeses carried can be found only at Kroger or Murray’s Cheese. In Houston, 51 out of the store’s 107 locations across the region are home to the cheese shop.

Fairchild says the best part about the partnership is the training program. Kroger helps its staffers behind the cheese counter become certified cheese professionals—a title not many people hold. The company offers scholarships to employees to send them to California for training with the American Cheese Society. Fairchild says it’s just like college—one worker even told him he often stays up until 2am to study.

Kroger’s staff also likes to find local partnerships. A couple years ago, Fairchild stumbled into Winfield’s Chocolate Bar in Rice Village and immediately realized that doing business with them would be a great move for Kroger’s Houston market. Kroger now sells several Winfield’s products in 14 locations across Houston. Some of these include dark chocolate–covered almonds, truffles, chocolate-covered Oreos, a cowboy boot–shaped milk chocolate bar—which Fairchild loves to gift to people who aren’t from Texas—and its bestseller, chocolate-covered s’mores.

Fairchild is especially proud of the partnership Kroger has developed with Cory Crawford of Burns BBQ, which stemmed from the pandemic. At the time, Burns BBQ needed a way to make money, like many other businesses, so Crawford began doing pop-ups around town and in some of Kroger’s parking lots.

“He would bring his food truck and start selling his barbecue,” Fairchild says. “It was helping him, because people weren’t coming to his restaurant, but then that’s where I got to see the power of his brand and the following he had in the community.”

The two worked together to place locations of Burns BBQ inside Kroger. The barbecue joint can now be found in three locations: Katy, Northeast Houston (in the Summerwood area), and Pearland, with a fourth coming to the North Shepherd store soon. The on-site restaurant offerings include smoked meats, sandwiches, baked potatoes, and sides like green beans, dirty rice, and mac and cheese.

“I knew what locations Cory and I could build a long-term partnership [at] that was sustainable, because the customers rewarded us through the pop-ups, so it was a great kind of test and learn,” Fairchild says.

Burns BBQ’s upcoming North Shepherd home is also where you can find Kroger’s only Texas location of its Cork and Tap wine bar, which opened in 2016. Kroger beer and wine specialist Jaime De Leon plans to add wine tastings and other events.

He’s also helped bring a wide assortment of varietals to Kroger shelves: At any given location across Houston, you’ll find about 1,500 to 2,000 wines in stock, and at the Heights location, this number rises to 3,000. De Leon notes the French wines are sold at a great price point, and he recommends paying extra attention to what is at eye-level. This part of the aisle is what he calls a “flex space,” where he sprinkles in some of his top selections.

Cork and Tap often has several beers on offer, too—De Leon loves to work with local breweries like Brash Brewing, Eureka Heights, and Karbach Brewing. And with the sober-curious trend going stronghold, especially with the younger generations, De Leon is branching out to include nonalcoholic wine in the store’s inventory.

The Houston market is also unique because it’s home to Kroger’s first Hispanic concept store, located in the South Belt-Ellington neighborhood. Liz Garner, local vice president of merchandising, says they made this decision because Hispanics make up a large number of Texas’s population.

The remodel of the South Belt-Ellington location, unveiled in 2023, was led by Laura Urquiza Gump, the first Latina president in Kroger history. From the outside, it looks like your usual Kroger, but on the inside, the store now has bilingual signage and nearly 1,900 Latin American products, including La Vaquita Cheeses, Mama Lucha Foods, Los Comas Snacks, and Fiesta Spices from Bolner’s Fiesta Products.

The store proved to be successful: There are now five others in Katy, Washington Heights, Baytown, Spring Branch, and Northwest Houston. 

Edmund LeBlanc, head of grocery merchandising for Kroger in Houston, says the grocery chain tries its best to cater to the diversity of the city in other ways, too. On shelves, you’ll often find various Indian, European, and Latin American ingredients.

“We’re a melting pot, right?” LeBlanc says. “We have every demographic. So, we also have to provide the ingredients that people grew up [with] and love.”

Kroger has a team responsible for gathering data on market trends. Recently, they’ve found consumers increasingly gravitating to Asian food. Now, Kroger—more specifically the Heights location—has about 30 feet set aside for the cuisine’s products within one of its aisles. Garner says the Dallas division has tested an Asian concept store, similarly to the Hispanic stores already in place, and that a Houston one could follow in the near future.

And although all of this helps the grocery store remain competitive, LeBlanc says at the end of the day, he and his team just want to create the best experience possible for shoppers.

“There’s a saying—if you can survive in Houston, you can survive anywhere in the country,” LeBlanc says.