Actually, I think they didn't understand industry period and it certainly helped their downfall.  They trusted Safeway to honor the agreements that were set in place, and of course, they didn't.   A large corporation is only going to operate under circumstances that are beneficial to the corporation, and agreements will be ignored if the corporation thinks it can get away with it.  Which Safeway was able to do because of the costs of litigation these days.

This is a common downfall of small businesses: expecting large business to behave in a moral, versus profitable, fashion.  It just doesn't happen as often as we'd like.

A wise old businessman once told me that only fools lock themselves into a single supplier or a single consumer, unless you are in a position to dictate terms.

Rod