Fred Meyer — Who bought out Kroger? Kroger opened and had about 50 stores in St. Louis until it left the market in , saying that its stores were unprofitable. Most of its stores were bought by National, Schnucks, and Shop 'n Save. Kroger also experienced a similar withdrawal from Chattanooga, Tennessee, in Is Publix owned by Kroger? No, Publix is not owned by Kroger.
Is Winn Dixie owned by Kroger? The company now has stores in eight Southeastern states. What is the largest grocery store chain? The world's largest supermarket chain is U. Kroger is also the third-largest retail company in the world based on revenue, behind Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Is Target owned by French?
Woodward opened a 10,square-foot grocery store, the first of its kind in Brigham City. Pent-up spending power from the war was being unleashed, and the dynamic expansion of production led to new demands by the average consumer. From until Lorenzo Smith's death in the company grew exponentially, with Dee Smith leading the aggressive growth campaign.
The store was refurbished and expanded by 50 percent, an advanced refrigeration system was installed, and the name was changed to Smith's Super Market. Reopened in December , the store posted huge sales increases; by Smith's was able to acquire American Food retail stores, a major grocery wholesaler and the primary supplier of Smith's. Soon after, another major store was opened in Brigham City with four times the space as Smith's Super Market.
These moves by Dee Smith established a firm base for expansion. Gross sales quadrupled from to and profit rates, although only 3 percent, were high by industry standards at the time. The purchase of Thiokol Chemical Corporation stock, an important business move, provided the duo with further capital for expansion. Thiokol had opened a plant north of Brigham City and was awarded a large Air Force contract. The investment reaped huge dividends, with the stock increasing in market value more than fold by With demand picking up as wages and employment grew in Brigham City, Smith and Woodward launched a growth plan, which included large ad campaigns and diversified product selection.
Bolstered by increased highway construction that would provide access to residential markets, Smith's was also awarded the concession contract for Morrison-Knudsen Construction Company, which was building a causeway in the area and was housing its workforce nearby.
Smith received concession rights for all services, including groceries, a restaurant, and a barber shop, to the residential construction camp. The operation was a guaranteed market and solidly profitable. By it appeared that the grocery market in Brigham City was becoming saturated, and Dee Smith was forced to look outside the area to new geographical markets. The s was a time of massive expansion for Smith, but growth was uneven. For instance, its first takeover of a Safeway store in Boise, Idaho, ended in failure after the discovery that the previous owner had been doctoring the books.
A major success was a contract Smith won to supply concessions to a construction camp for workers who were building Flaming Gorge Dam, a ten-year project that would provide stable demand for Smith's products. Smith also opened a new store called Food Giant. Other successful takeovers followed as Smith expanded into wholesale trade, giving him more control over suppliers and distribution. Woodward purchased three Success Markets in Salt Lake City, and by the early s Smith's had obtained more than stores.
The pattern was to buy failing stores at low prices, modernize them, and turn them into profitable operations. This strategy gave Dee Smith the needed funds and enabled him to build the large supermarkets that would become the standard in the industry. But like any successful business, Smith's recognized the need for continued growth to fend off competitors.
Smith achieved this task by reorganizing management, slashing wages, and intensifying workloads. He streamlined the management structure and instituted bonus incentives for managers while, at the same time, cutting salaries.
An intensive labor effort also was launched to redecorate and reorganize all of the stores. Sales soared, but the company's profits were being strangled by its heavy debt service load, which limited cash flow. Nonetheless, the reorganization campaign left the company in a good position to cut prices. The discount pricing strategy helped revive sagging sales at some of the former Mayfair stores, thus expanding market share. To further enhance its overall profit margins, Smith acquired its first nonfood business, the Utah-based Souvall Brothers, in This acquisition, according to Carlisle in The Dee Smith Story, kept the company afloat during the recession years of the early s.
With the nonfood portion of the business growing faster than the grocery side, the company began experimenting with combination stores, gaining a jump on its competitors and momentum that lasted well into the s. In addition to its many acquisitions, Smith also constructed new stores throughout the late s and early s, building new stores in Ogden, Roy, and Magna, Utah, as well as expanding the Souvall warehouse facilities in Salt Lake City.
The biggest project was the construction of a ,square-foot warehouse and distribution center in Layton, Utah. This facility, centrally located and near major highways, enabled Smith's to provide its own wholesaling and warehousing and gain greater cost and inventory control. Acquisitions had cut into profit margins, however, and coupled with the recession of and Nixon price controls, the company's cash flow problems threatened to become acute.
Thus the need for external funding sources to finance the new warehousing center in Layton was vital. Subsequently, Smith's realized huge cost-cutting success from its direct control over distribution and wholesaling operations.
Fans of the stores in other cities also enjoy the clean look and wide-open ambience. Likewise, most Wall Street analysts who follow the company are bullish on its long-term outlook. Profits and sales have been robust for several years. The potential sites include a location in depressed South-Central Los Angeles, a territory that most of the other supermarket and general merchandise chains have largely abandoned.
A stylish dresser who wears gold rings on both hands, Smith likes to relax at his vacation home in the posh Vintage Club development in the Southern California desert town of Indian Wells. But Jeff Smith said he simply wanted the money to pay off taxes and to diversify his personal holdings. The Smith brothers, to some extent, have lived in the shadow of their father, Dee Smith, who died in The elder Smith expanded the company from a pair of small markets in the late s into a major Western chain by buying failing grocery chains and turning them around.
They will need to attract customers from as far as three miles away to bring in enough revenue to prosper. But Jeff Smith discounts those issues. Smith said his company decided to return to California to maintain its brisk growth largely because the state is less saturated with supermarkets than other parts of the West, particularly when it comes to big combination stores.
Business: Operator of a chain of grocery stores--mostly giant combination supermarket-drugstores--in the West.
Top Executives: Jeffrey P. Smith, chairman and chief executive; Richard D.
0コメント