Kroger, the Cincinnati-based grocery giant, is under fresh scrutiny after an analyst data set showed customer visits at a group of stores have fallen for a third straight month, contradicting CEO Greg Foran’s recent claim that traffic is on the rise. The clash over the numbers piles on pressure as Foran pushes price cuts, store-execution fixes and an expansion of profitable e-commerce.
Jefferies looked at a sample of Kroger locations and found in-store visits declining for three consecutive months, a trend flagged in local business coverage. As reported by the Cincinnati Business Courier, the firm’s note says the sampled traffic figures "do not match" Kroger's public statements, even as analysts stay broadly optimistic about the new CEO's turnaround plan.
What Kroger Is Saying
On the company’s June earnings call, CEO Greg Foran emphasized that loyal households are growing and that visits are improving, a theme he repeated for investors. RetailWit summarized management’s message that "foot traffic is up" and that the chain is working to sharpen day-to-day execution in the aisle.
Kroger’s own first-quarter release backs up that narrative with company-wide figures. Identical sales excluding fuel rose about 1.0%, and adjusted e-commerce sales climbed roughly 19% as the digital business crossed into profitability, according to investor materials. Kroger reported those numbers in its June 18 press release.
Why Analysts Still Back Foran
Even with the Jefferies traffic warning, some Wall Street analysts argue that Foran’s playbook still makes sense. The strategy centers on funding deeper price investments with cost and sourcing savings, while tightening store execution, which they see as a workable path forward rather than a moonshot. Jefferies trimmed its price target earlier in June but kept a buy rating and highlighted Kroger’s value push and e-commerce progress as support for the outlook, according to coverage of the research call from Investing.com.
Why The Data Can Differ
Location-analytics samples and company-wide metrics are not always telling the same story. Foot-traffic vendors such as Placer.ai point out that Kroger’s shift to store-based fulfillment and curbside pickup has boosted short, quick visits that show up as traffic, even as basket depth and buying patterns evolve. That mix of brief pickup stops and fuller in-store shopping trips makes a clean apples-to-apples comparison between one slice of store visits and Kroger’s broader loyalty and sales metrics difficult. Placer.ai has tracked those short-visit trends.
Local Stakes
In Cincinnati, Kroger’s hometown, the debate is not just an academic fight over spreadsheets. Local investors, suppliers and store leaders all have skin in the game as they try to make Foran’s turnaround stick. Earlier coverage dug into how the city reacted to Kroger’s June results and the concern around execution and pricing that followed a mixed quarter. That local concern over Kroger's execution captured just how closely the hometown crowd is watching.
What comes next bears watching: whether future samples confirm the same three-month slide, whether Kroger can turn its store fixes into broader basket growth, and how Foran’s price and execution moves affect both visit counts and average spend. For now, the real question is less about which side’s chart looks better and more about whether changes on the sales floor translate into steady, visible gains at the checkout.
