Buying the Schnucks stores will open the way for Kroger to control the lion's share of the Memphis area's grocery market.
But Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s fast rise as a grocer may temper antitrust concerns in Washington over Kroger's expansion plans in Memphis, an industry analyst said.
Big discounters like Wal-Mart and Target deeply cut into sales by traditional supermarkets when they began selling groceries over the last two decades.
"The fact that Wal-Mart has expanded its grocery offerings gives the Federal Trade Commission another competitor to look at when it considers monopolies in these markets,'' said Mark Hamstra, retail and financial editor of Supermarket News, a trade journal in New York.
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