The Kroger Company, or simply Kroger, is an American
retail
Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and t ...
company that operates (either directly or through its subsidiaries) supermarkets and multi-department stores throughout the United States.
Founded by
Bernard Kroger
Bernard Heinrich "Henry" Kroger (January 24, 1860 – July 21, 1938) was an American businessman who created the Kroger chain of supermarkets. Kroger was a pioneering grocery innovator who introduced self-service shopping to the public in 1895. ...
in 1883 in
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
, Kroger operates 2,720 grocery retail stores under its various banners and divisions in 35 states and the District of Columbia
with store formats that include 134
multi-department stores, 2,277
combo stores, 188
marketplace stores, and 121
price-impact warehouse stores.
[ Kroger operates 33 manufacturing plants, 1,629 supermarket fuel centers, 2,252 pharmacies, 225 ]The Little Clinic
The Kroger Company, or simply Kroger, is an American retail company that operates (either directly or through its subsidiaries) supermarkets and multi-department stores throughout the United States.
Founded by Bernard Kroger in 1883 in Cincin ...
in-store medical clinics, and 129 jewelry store
A jewellery store (American English: jewelry store) is a retail business establishment, that specializes in selling (and also buying) jewellery and watch
A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is des ...
s (782 convenience store
A convenience store, convenience shop, corner store or corner shop is a small retail business that stocks a range of everyday items such as coffee, groceries, snack foods, confectionery, soft drinks, ice creams, tobacco products, lottery ticket ...
s were sold to EG Group
EG Group is a British retailer headquartered in Blackburn, United Kingdom, which operates filling stations, convenience stores and fast-food restaurants in Europe, the United States and Australia. The group was created through the combination o ...
in 2018). , Kroger's headquarters are located in downtown Cincinnati
Downtown Cincinnati is the central business district of Cincinnati, Ohio, as well the economic and symbiotic center of the Cincinnati metropolitan area. It also contains a number of urban neighborhoods in the low land area between the Ohio ...
.
The Kroger Company is the United States' largest supermarket
A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earli ...
operator by revenue and fifth-largest general retailer. The company is one of the largest American-owned private employers in the United States. Kroger is ranked #17 on the ''Fortune'' 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
About two-thirds of Kroger's employees are represented by collective bargaining agreement
A collective agreement, collective labour agreement (CLA) or collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is a written contract negotiated through collective bargaining for employees by one or more trade unions with the management of a company (or with an ...
s, with most being represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers
The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) is a labor union representing approximately 1.3 million workers in the United States and Canada in industries including retail; meatpacking, food processing and manufacturing; hosp ...
(UFCW).
History
Beginning
In 1883, 23-year-old Bernard Kroger
Bernard Heinrich "Henry" Kroger (January 24, 1860 – July 21, 1938) was an American businessman who created the Kroger chain of supermarkets. Kroger was a pioneering grocery innovator who introduced self-service shopping to the public in 1895. ...
, the fifth of ten children of German immigrants, invested his life savings of $372 (roughly $10,000 in 2020) to open a grocery store at 66 Pearl Street in downtown Cincinnati. The son of a merchant, he ran his business with a simple motto: "Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself." He experimented with marketing products his company had produced, so his customers would not need to patronize separate stores and farms.
In 1884, Kroger opened his second store. By 1902, the Kroger Grocery and Baking Company had been incorporated. By this time, the company had grown to forty stores and sold $1.75 million worth of merchandise each year. In addition, Kroger became the first grocery chain to have its own bakery.
In 1916, Kroger company began self-service shopping. Before this, all articles were kept behind counters. Customers would ask for them, then clerks would deliver them to customers.
In 1929, it was rumored that Safeway
Safeway is an American supermarket chain founded by Marion Barton Skaggs in April 1915 in American Falls, Idaho. The chain provides grocery items, food and general merchandise and features a variety of specialty departments, such as bakery, d ...
would merge with Kroger.[Alternate Link]
via ProQuest
ProQuest LLC is an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based global information-content and technology company, founded in 1938 as University Microfilms by Eugene B. Power. ProQuest is known for its applications and information services for libraries, provid ...
.
In the 1930s, Kroger became the first grocery chain to monitor product quality and to test foods offered to customers, and also the first to have a store surrounded on all four sides by parking lot
A parking lot (American English) or car park (British English), also known as a car lot, is a cleared area intended for parking vehicles. The term usually refers to an area dedicated only for parking, with a durable or semi-durable surface ...
s.
1950s
Beginning in 1955, Kroger began acquiring supermarket chains, expanding into new markets. In May, Kroger entered the Houston, Texas
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
, market by acquiring the Houston-based 26-store chain Henke & Pillot
Henke & Pillot was a chain of supermarkets headquartered in Houston, Texas.Gonzales, J.R.Houston's own Henke & Pillot" ''Houston Chronicle'' blogs. October 20, 2010. Retrieved January 13, 2011. "Offices at 3021 Washington" The chain began in 1872. ...
. In June, Kroger acquired the Krambo Food Stores, Inc. of Appleton, Wisconsin
Appleton ( mez, Ahkōnemeh)
is a city in Outagamie, Calumet, and Winnebago counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. One of the Fox Cities, it is situated on the Fox River, southwest of Green Bay and north of Milwaukee. Appleton is the c ...
. In late July, it purchased Child's Food Stores, Inc. of Jacksonville, Texas
Jacksonville is a city located in Cherokee County, Texas, United States. The population was 13,997 at the 2020 U.S. census. It is the principal city of the Jacksonville micropolitan statistical area, which includes all of Cherokee County, and pa ...
.
In January 1956, the company bought out Big Chain Stores, Inc., a chain of seven stores based in Shreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the third most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, respectively. The Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area, with a population of 393,406 in 2020, is t ...
, later combining it with the Childs group. All of these chains adopted the Kroger banner in 1966.
During all the acquisitions, in September 1957, Kroger sold off its Wichita, Kansas
Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County, Kansas, Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had ...
, store division, then consisting of 16 stores, to J. S. Dillon and Sons Stores Company, then headed by Ray S. Dillon, son of the company founder.
1960s
In October 1963, Kroger acquired the 56-store chain Market Basket, providing them with a foothold in the lucrative southern California market. (Prior to this time Kroger had no stores west of Kansas.)
Kroger opened stores in Florida under the SupeRx and Florida Choice banners from the 1960s until 1988, when the chain decided to exit the state and sold all of its stores; Kash n' Karry
Sweetbay Supermarket was a chain of American supermarkets located in Florida. The first Sweetbay Supermarket to open was in Seminole, Florida, in November 2004. The company's headquarters was located near Tampa, in Hillsborough County, Florida. ...
bought the largest share.
1970s
In the 1970s, Kroger became the first grocer in the United States to test an electronic scanner and the first to formalize consumer research.
Although Kroger has long operated stores in the Huntsville
Huntsville is a city in Madison County, Limestone County, and Morgan County, Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Madison County. Located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama, Huntsville is the most populous city in th ...
- Decatur area of northern Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...
(as a southern extension of its Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...
, region), it has not operated in the state's largest market, Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
, since the early 1970s, when it exited as a result of intense competition from Winn-Dixie and local chains Bruno's Supermarkets
Bruno's Supermarkets, LLC was an American chain of grocery stores with its headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama.
It was founded in 1932 by Joseph Bruno in Birmingham. During the company's pinnacle, it operated over 300 stores under the names Br ...
and Western Supermarkets.
Kroger built an ultra-modern dairy plant (Crossroad Farms Dairy) in Indianapolis in 1972, which was then considered the largest dairy plant in the world.
Kroger exited the Chicago market
The Chicago metropolitan area, also colloquially referred to as Chicagoland, is a metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. Encompassing 10,286 sq mi (28,120 km2), the metropolitan area includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and hi ...
in 1970 selling its distribution warehouse in Northlake, Il. and 24 stores to the Dominick's Finer Foods grocery chain. Kroger withdrew from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in 1970, selling 16 stores.
Kroger exited Milwaukee in 1972, selling a few stores to Jewel. Kroger would later return in 2015 upon its acquisition of Roundy's
Roundy's Supermarkets (also known as Roundy's) is an American supermarket operator. It owns and operates stores under the names of Pick 'n Save, Metro Market, and Mariano's Fresh Market. The chain is a subsidiary of Kroger. Roundy's operates ...
.
Kroger entered the Charlotte
Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...
market in 1977 and expanded rapidly throughout the 1980s when it bought some stores from BI-LO. However, most stores were in less desirable neighborhoods and did not fit in with Kroger's upscale image. Less than three months after BI-LO pulled out, that company decided to re-enter the Charlotte market, and in 1988, Kroger announced it was pulling out of the Charlotte market and put its stores up for sale. Ahold
Koninklijke Ahold N.V. was a Dutch multinational retail company based in Zaandam, Netherlands. It merged with Belgium-based Delhaize Group in 2016 to form Ahold Delhaize.
History
Growth in the Netherlands
The company started in 1887, when Al ...
bought Kroger's remaining stores in the Charlotte area and converted them to BI-LO.[Charlotte Observer, Kroger will Close Charlotte, Charleston Stores in January. Nov 17, 1988]
1980s
Kroger had a number of stores in the Western Pennsylvania
Western Pennsylvania is a region in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, covering the western third of the state. Pittsburgh is the region's principal city, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic ...
region, encompassing Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
and surrounding areas from 1928 until 1984 when the U.S. began experiencing a severe economic recession
In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction when there is a general decline in economic activity. Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending (an adverse demand shock). This may be triggered by various ...
. The recession had two significant and related effects on Kroger's operations in the region. One of them was that the highly cyclical manufacturing-based economy of the region declined in greater proportion than the rest of the U.S., which undercut demand for the higher-end products and services offered by Kroger. The second effect of the economic recession was to worsen labor-management relations, causing a protracted labor strike in 1983 and 1984. During the strike, Kroger withdrew all of its stores from the Western Pennsylvania market, including some recently opened "superstores" and "greenhouses", selling these stores to Wetterau (now part of SuperValu), who promptly flipped the stores to independent owners while continuing to supply them under the FoodLand
"FoodLand" is a regional American supermarket chain based in New Stanton, Pennsylvania. The unique "F" logo of the supermarket chain is a registered trademark of Minnesota-based SuperValu, which serves as the chain's main wholesale distributor ...
and Shop 'n Save
Shop ’n Save was a grocery store chain in the Greater St. Louis market with 36 stores at its peak. The company, headquartered in Kirkwood, Missouri, was a wholly owned subsidiary of SuperValu, based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
SuperValu also ...
brands. Kroger's exit ceded the market to lower-cost, locally owned rivals, most notably Giant Eagle
Giant Eagle, Inc. (Western Pennsylvania English: ) and stylized as giant eagle) is an American supermarket chain with stores in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, and Maryland. The company was founded in 1918 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylv ...
and the SuperValu-supplied grocers. (Kroger purchased Eagle Grocery company, whose founders went on to create Giant Eagle.) Kroger still maintains a presence in the nearby Morgantown, West Virginia
Morgantown is a city in and the county seat of Monongalia County, West Virginia, Monongalia County, West Virginia, United States, situated along the Monongahela River. The largest city in North-Central West Virginia, Morgantown is best known as th ...
, Wheeling, West Virginia
Wheeling is a city in the U.S. state of West Virginia. Located almost entirely in Ohio County, of which it is the county seat, it lies along the Ohio River in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and also contains a tiny portion extending ...
, and Weirton, West Virginia
Weirton () is a city in Brooke and Hancock counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia. Located primarily in Hancock County, the city lies in the northern portions of the state's Northern Panhandle region. As of the 2020 census, the city's pop ...
/Steubenville, Ohio
Steubenville is a city in and the county seat of Jefferson County, Ohio, United States. Located along the Ohio River 33 miles west of Pittsburgh, it had a population of 18,161 at the 2020 census. The city's name is derived from Fort Steuben, a 1 ...
, areas where Giant Eagle has a much smaller presence and the SuperValu-supplied stores are virtually nonexistent, though in all of these cases, Walmart remains a major competitor and Aldi
Aldi (stylised as ALDI) is the common company brand name of two German multinational family-owned discount supermarket chains operating over 10,000 stores in 20 countries. The chain was founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946, when t ...
is the only other supermarket with any market overlap.
Kroger entered the competitive San Antonio, Texas
("Cradle of Freedom")
, image_map =
, mapsize = 220px
, map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = United States
, subdivision_type1= State
, subdivision_name1 = Texas
, subdivision_t ...
, market in 1980 but pulled out in mid-1993. On June 15, 1993, the company announced the closure of its 15 area stores.
The chain closed several stores around Flint, Michigan
Flint is the largest city and seat of Genesee County, Michigan, United States. Located along the Flint River, northwest of Detroit, it is a principal city within the region known as Mid Michigan. At the 2020 census, Flint had a population of 8 ...
, in 1981, which were converted by local businessman Al Kessel to a new chain called Kessel Food Markets
Kessel Food Markets was an American supermarket chain based in Michigan. It began in 1981 when Owosso, Michigan, native Al Kessel, a former executive vice president of Hamady Brothers supermarkets, purchased Kroger locations in Corunna and Sagin ...
. Kroger bought most of these stores back in 1999 and began reverting them. Several other Michigan stores were sold to another Flint-based chain, Hamady Brothers
Hamady was an American supermarket chain based in Flint, Michigan, United States, which at its peak had 37 stores and 1,300 employees. Given the chain's pervasiveness in the area, paper grocery bags were known as “Hamady sacks”.
History
Hamady ...
, in 1980. The Hamady acquisition was short-lived.
In 1982, Kroger sold the 65-store Market Basket chain it had operated for several years in southern California. The stores were reverted to the Boys Markets
Ralphs is an American supermarket chain in Southern California. The largest subsidiary of Cincinnati-based Kroger, it is the oldest such chain west of the Mississippi River. Kroger also operates stores under the Food 4 Less and Foods Co. names ...
branding, after acquiring the chain. Boys Markets was acquired by the Yucaipa Companies
The Yucaipa Companies, LLC is an American private equity firm founded in 1986 by Ronald Burkle. It specializes in private equity and venture capital, with a focus on middle-market companies, growth capital, industry consolidation, leveraged buy ...
in 1989. When Yucaipa acquired Ralphs
Ralphs is an American supermarket chain in Southern California. The largest subsidiary of Cincinnati-based Kroger, it is the oldest such chain west of the Mississippi River. Kroger also operates stores under the Food 4 Less and Foods Co. names ...
, the Boys brand disappeared.
In 1983, The Kroger Company acquired Dillon Companies grocery chain in Kansas along with its subsidiaries (King Soopers
King Soopers is a supermarket brand of Kroger located in the Rocky Mountains of the United States. It started as its own brand and, today, is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.
King Soopers has a significant presence in the state of Colorado on ...
, City Market, Fry's and Gerbes
Dillons is a grocery supermarket chain based in Hutchinson, Kansas, and is a division of Kroger. Other banners under Dillon Stores Division include Gerbes in Missouri and Baker's Supermarkets, Baker's in Omaha, Nebraska. Dillons operates grocer ...
) and the convenience store chain Kwik Shop
Kwik Shop is a chain of convenience stores and gas stations located throughout Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. They offer cold beverages, coffee, snack items, general foods, lottery tickets, and gasoline. It is owned by EG Group#EG America, EG Americ ...
. David Dillon, a fourth-generation descendant of J. S. Dillon, the founder of Dillon Companies, became the CEO of Kroger.
In northeastern Ohio, Kroger had a plant in Solon, Ohio
Solon ( ) is a city in southeastern Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. A suburb of Cleveland, it is part of the Cleveland metropolitan area. According to the 2020 census, the population of Solon was 24,262.
The city has been recognized by ''M ...
until the mid-1980s. When that plant shut down, Kroger closed its northeastern Ohio stores in the Cleveland, Akron
Akron () is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Summit County. It is located on the western edge of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, about south of downtown Cleveland. As of the 2020 Census, the city prop ...
, and Youngstown
Youngstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio, and the largest city and county seat of Mahoning County. At the 2020 census, Youngstown had a city population of 60,068. It is a principal city of the Youngstown–Warren metropolitan area, which ...
areas. Some of those former Kroger stores were taken over by stores like Acme Fresh Markets, Giant Eagle
Giant Eagle, Inc. (Western Pennsylvania English: ) and stylized as giant eagle) is an American supermarket chain with stores in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, and Maryland. The company was founded in 1918 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylv ...
, and Heinens
Heinen's Grocery Store is a family-owned and operated regional supermarket chain in Northeast Ohio and in the Chicago metropolitan area.
History
Heinen's was founded in 1929 in Cleveland, Ohio when Joe Heinen opened a small meat market on K ...
.
Kroger opened and had about 50 stores in St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
until it left the market in 1986, saying that its stores were unprofitable. Most of its stores were bought by National
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, ce ...
, Schnucks
Schnucks is a supermarket chain. Based in the St. Louis area, the company was founded in 1939 with the opening of a store in north St. Louis and currently operates over 100 stores in four states throughout the Midwest (Missouri, Illinois, India ...
, and Shop 'n Save
Shop ’n Save was a grocery store chain in the Greater St. Louis market with 36 stores at its peak. The company, headquartered in Kirkwood, Missouri, was a wholly owned subsidiary of SuperValu, based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
SuperValu also ...
. Most of the remaining Kroger stores in eastern Missouri and west-central Illinois became a western extension of the Central Division (headquartered in Indianapolis
Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...
).
Kroger also experienced a similar withdrawal from Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia, it also extends into Marion County on its western end. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, ...
, in 1989. Many of these stores were sold to the local grocery chain Red Food
Red Food Stores, Inc. (or simply Red Food) was a supermarket chain company headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It operated stores mostly in northwest Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, northeast Alabama, and southeast Tennessee. Around 55 stores ...
, which was in turn bought by BI-LO in 1994. Today, Chattanooga is the only metropolitan market in Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
in which Kroger does not operate with the nearest location being Dalton, Georgia
Dalton is a city and the county seat of Whitfield County, Georgia, United States. It is also the principal city of the Dalton Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Murray and Whitfield counties.
As of the 2010 census, the ci ...
with 2 stores (Walnut Avenue and Cleveland Highway).
1990s
In the 1990s, Kroger acquired Great Scott (Detroit), Pay Less Food Markets
Pay Less Super Markets are a chain of nine supermarkets located in the central Indiana towns of Anderson, Lafayette, Muncie and West Lafayette. There were two Pay Less grocery stores in Omaha that only lasted two years before being taken over b ...
, Owen's Market
Owen's Market was a small chain of grocery stores located in northern Indiana in the United States, owned by the Kroger corporation. Founded in 1938. At the time of the chain name's phase-out in August 2020, there were three Owen's Market location ...
, JayC Food Stores
JayC Food Stores is an American supermarket chain based in Petersburg, Indiana. , the chain operates 64
stores in Southern Indiana. JayC has been a division of Kroger since 1999.
History Early history
JayC was founded in 1863 by Swiss immigrant ...
, and Hilander Foods
Hilander was a small chain of supermarkets in the metro area of Rockford, Illinois in the United States. The stores were operated by Schnucks, which acquired the chain from The Kroger Co. on September 21, 2011. As of May 2013, the stores hav ...
. Additionally, the Houston market was strengthened when Kroger bought several stores from AppleTree Markets AppleTree Markets was a supermarket chain in Texas formed in 1969 when Safeway opened its first stores in Houston, which were spun off under the AppleTree name in 1988. The division once had 100 stores in Greater Houston and Greater Austin. By Ja ...
, which were former Safeway
Safeway is an American supermarket chain founded by Marion Barton Skaggs in April 1915 in American Falls, Idaho. The chain provides grocery items, food and general merchandise and features a variety of specialty departments, such as bakery, d ...
stores in early 1994.
In 1998, Kroger merged with the then fifth-largest grocery company Fred Meyer
Fred Meyer is an American chain of hypermarket superstores founded in 1922 in Portland, Oregon, USA, by Fred G. Meyer. The stores are found in the northwest U.S., within the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska. The company merged w ...
, along with its subsidiaries, Ralphs
Ralphs is an American supermarket chain in Southern California. The largest subsidiary of Cincinnati-based Kroger, it is the oldest such chain west of the Mississippi River. Kroger also operates stores under the Food 4 Less and Foods Co. names ...
, QFC
Quality Food Centers, better known as QFC, is a supermarket chain based in Bellevue, Washington, with 62 stores in the Puget Sound region of the state of Washington and in the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area. QFC is a subsidiary of Kroger.
...
, and Smith's.
In the late 1990s, it acquired many stores from A&P as it exited many markets in the South.
Kroger also swapped all ten of its Greensboro, North Carolina
Greensboro (; formerly Greensborough) is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte and Raleigh, the 69th-most populous city in the Un ...
-area stores in 1999 to Matthews, North Carolina
Matthews is a town in southeastern Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, United States. It is a suburb of Charlotte. The population was 27,198 according to the 2010 Census.
History
In the early 19th century, the new settlement that would become Ma ...
-based Harris Teeter
Harris Teeter Supermarkets, Inc., also known as Harris Teeter Neighborhood Food & Pharmacy, is an American supermarket chain based in Matthews, North Carolina, a suburb of Charlotte. , the chain operates 261 stores in seven South Atlantic states ...
, for 11 of that company's stores in central and western Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
.
2000s
Long the dominant grocer in western Virginia, Kroger entered the Richmond, Virginia
(Thus do we reach the stars)
, image_map =
, mapsize = 250 px
, map_caption = Location within Virginia
, pushpin_map = Virginia#USA
, pushpin_label = Richmond
, pushpin_m ...
, market in 2000, where it competes against market leaders Martin's (including former Ukrop's stores) and Food Lion
Food Lion is an American regional grocery store chain headquartered in Salisbury, North Carolina, that operates over 1100 supermarkets in 10 states of the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States (Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, North ...
. Kroger entered the market by purchasing Hannaford Hannaford may refer to:
People
* Alf Hannaford (1890–1969), South Australian inventor and industrialist
* Ann Hannaford Lamar (born 1952), American jurist
* Charlie Hannaford (footballer) (1896–1970), English footballer
* Clive Hannaford (19 ...
stores that either already existed or were being built in Richmond. Hannaford purchases also included the competitive Hampton Roads
Hampton Roads is the name of both a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James River, James, Nansemond River, Nansemond and Elizabeth River (Virginia), Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's ...
market, where it now competes with Farm Fresh, Harris Teeter
Harris Teeter Supermarkets, Inc., also known as Harris Teeter Neighborhood Food & Pharmacy, is an American supermarket chain based in Matthews, North Carolina, a suburb of Charlotte. , the chain operates 261 stores in seven South Atlantic states ...
(which is owned by Kroger), and Food Lion
Food Lion is an American regional grocery store chain headquartered in Salisbury, North Carolina, that operates over 1100 supermarkets in 10 states of the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States (Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, North ...
. The Hannaford locations in these markets were purchased from Delhaize
Delhaize Group SA (, ) was a Belgian multinational retail company headquartered in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, Brussels, Belgium, and operated in seven countries and on three continents. The principal activity of Delhaize Group was the operation of f ...
by Kroger as a condition of Delhaize's 2000 acquisition of the Hannaford chain, which had previously competed against Food Lion, also owned by Delhaize. Walmart Supercenters are also major competitors in both markets, and the chain briefly competed against Winn-Dixie, which has now exited Virginia.
In 2001, Kroger acquired Baker's Supermarkets
Baker's is a supermarket chain operating primarily in the metro area of Omaha, Nebraska. It is owned by Kroger. Baker's supermarket has an annual revenue of $325,000,000.
History
Abraham Baker opened his first grocery store in Walnut, Iowa in ...
from Fleming Companies, Inc.
Albertsons
Albertsons Companies, Inc. is an American grocery company founded and headquartered in Boise, Idaho.
With 2,253 stores as of the third quarter of fiscal year 2020 and 270,000 employees as of fiscal year 2019, the company is the second-large ...
exited the San Antonio and Houston markets in early 2002, selling many of the Houston stores to Kroger.
In 2004, Kroger bought most of the old Thriftway stores in Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
, when Winn-Dixie left the area. These stores were reopened as Kroger stores.
In 2007, Kroger acquired Scott's Food & Pharmacy
Scott's Food & Pharmacy was a supermarket chain in the Fort Wayne, Indiana market. The company was once a wholly owned subsidiary of SuperValu, but was acquired by The Kroger Co. in 2007. At the time of its purchase by Kroger, the chain had 18 ...
from SuperValu Inc., and in the same year, also
acquired 20 former Michigan Farmer Jack locations from A&P when A&P exited the Michigan Market.
In 2008, Kroger began a partnership with Murray's Cheese
Murray's Cheese is an artisanal cheese and specialty foods retailer and wholesaler based in Greenwich Village in New York City. It was founded in Greenwich Village in 1962 as a spinoff of Glen Alden farms, an egg and dairy wholesaler. The company ...
of New York City. Murray's Cheese counters within Kroger stores sell a variety of artisanal cheese from all parts of the world.
2010s
On July 9, 2013, Kroger announced its acquisition of (the 212 stores of Charlotte-based) Harris Teeter
Harris Teeter Supermarkets, Inc., also known as Harris Teeter Neighborhood Food & Pharmacy, is an American supermarket chain based in Matthews, North Carolina, a suburb of Charlotte. , the chain operates 261 stores in seven South Atlantic states ...
in a deal valued at $2.5 billion and that it will assume $100 million in the company's outstanding debt. Harris Teeter's stores are in eight Southern states, with a major portion of them in its headquarters state of North Carolina. Doing so, Kroger acquired Harris Teeter's click and collect program which allows online ordering of groceries. Some industry experts see this as a competitive move against online grocer
An online grocer is either a brick-and-mortar supermarket or grocery store that allows online ordering, or a standalone e-commerce service that includes grocery items. There is usually a delivery charge for this service. Brick-and-mortar supermark ...
s such as AmazonFresh
Amazon Fresh is a subsidiary of the American e-commerce company Amazon in Seattle, Washington. It is a grocery retailer with physical stores and delivery services in most major U.S. cities, as well as some international cities, such as Berlin, Ha ...
. The Harris Teeter acquisition marked Kroger's return to the Charlotte market after a 25-year absence. It also allowed Kroger to enter Asheville
Asheville ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Buncombe County, North Carolina. Located at the confluence of the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, it is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the state's 11th-most populous cit ...
for the first time. Charlotte and Asheville had been the only large markets in North Carolina where Kroger had no presence.
In 2013, Kroger announced that the spouses of the company's unionized workers would no longer be covered by the company's insurance plan. The company cited the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and colloquially known as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Presi ...
as a prime reason for the move. The benefit cut affects roughly 11,000 workers in Indiana. The company announced in April 2013 that full-time employees would maintain their health insurance benefits.
On March 3, 2015, Kroger announced it will enter Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
, having registered with the state as a new business in February 2015. The move had been in the planning stages, as it was planning to expand there in 2006 but withdrew after it had already submitted registration. Kroger, which is in the process of looking for locations to open its first store, will face competition from Honolulu-based rivals Foodland
"FoodLand" is a regional American supermarket chain based in New Stanton, Pennsylvania. The unique "F" logo of the supermarket chain is a registered trademark of Minnesota-based SuperValu, which serves as the chain's main wholesale distributor ...
and Times
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events, and a fundamental quantity of measuring systems.
Time or times may also refer to:
Temporal measurement
* Time in physics, defined by its measurement
* Time standard, civil time specific ...
; major retailers Safeway, Walmart, and Costco
Costco Wholesale Corporation (doing business as Costco Wholesale and also known simply as Costco) is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only big-box retail stores (warehouse club). As of 2022, Costco i ...
; Japanese-owned Don Quixote; and Department of Defense-owned DeCA Commissaries.
On May 1, 2015, Kroger announced the acquisition of the seven-store Hiller's Market chain in Southeast Michigan, and that it would operate all but one of those stores under the Kroger banner.
In June 2015, Kroger eliminated the Harris Teeter brand from the crowded Nashville, Tennessee market, where its growth had been stunted by aggressive competition since it entered with six stores in the early-2000s. Kroger has traditionally had a market-leading presence in Nashville, and initially promised to keep the five remaining Harris Teeter stores open when it acquired the chain, but later said the market "did not support Harris Teeter's future business plans." Two Harris Teeter stores were closed outright, and three closed temporarily while being converted to the Kroger brand (one of these would undergo a major remodeling and replace a neighboring Kroger store).
On November 11, 2015, Kroger and Roundy's
Roundy's Supermarkets (also known as Roundy's) is an American supermarket operator. It owns and operates stores under the names of Pick 'n Save, Metro Market, and Mariano's Fresh Market. The chain is a subsidiary of Kroger. Roundy's operates ...
announced a definitive merger, bringing Roundy's chain's 166 primarily Wisconsin based chains under Kroger ownership. The merger is valued at $800 million, including debt. The acquisition, which brought Kroger back to Wisconsin after a 43-year absence, will retain the Roundy's, Pick 'n Save, Mariano's, Metro Market and Copps names, along with its Milwaukee operations. (Within a year-and-a-half, however, Kroger had rebranded all Copps locations to the Pick 'n Save banner.)
In April 2016, Kroger announced that it had made a "meaningful investment" in the Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...
-based Lucky's Market
LM Acquisition Co. LLC , doing business as Lucky's Market, is a group of two separate supermarket chains in Colorado and Ohio that started in Boulder and briefly became a national chain before it shrank back to its home state. Founded in 2003 ...
, an organic foods supermarket chain that operated 17 stores in 13 states throughout the Midwest and Southeast United States.
In February 2017, Kroger withstood large community protests after announcing the closing of two smaller-sized Louisville-area stores.
Despite high store volumes and high population densities, the Old Louisville (lease expiration) and Southland Terrace stores closed.
On February 7, 2017, it was announced that Kroger Co. had purchased Murray's Cheese.
, Kroger is no longer offering a discount to senior citizens 59 and up.
On May 1, 2017, Kroger, along with the University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentu ...
and UK Athletics
UK Athletics (UKA) is the governing body for the sport of athletics (sport), athletics in the United Kingdom. It is responsible for overseeing the governance of athletics events in the UK as well as athletes, their development, and athletics o ...
, sports and campus marketing partner JMI Sports, announced a 12-year, $1.85 million per year campus marketing agreement. Included in the agreement is the naming rights
Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization whereby a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event, typically for a defined period of t ...
to Commonwealth Stadium, the university's football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
stadium, which will be renamed Kroger Field
Kroger Field, formerly known as Commonwealth Stadium, is a stadium in Lexington, Kentucky, United States, located on the campus of the University of Kentucky that primarily serves as the home field for the Kentucky Wildcats football team. The stad ...
. This agreement makes the University of Kentucky the first school in the Southeastern Conference
The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of ...
to enter into a corporate partnership for the naming rights to their football stadium.
On May 10, 2017, Kroger opened its first convenience store in Blacklick, Ohio
Blacklick is a small unincorporated community in southern Jefferson Township, Franklin County, Ohio, United States. Blacklick is also included in the Columbus Metropolitan area.
The community was established by William A. Smith in 1852. It was ...
, labeled "Fresh Eats MKT". The new prototype stores will have about 12,000 square feet of space, and will be very similar to the Walmart Neighborhood Market
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...
project, as these stores only sell food. These stores have a Starbucks
Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is the world's largest coffeehouse chain.
As of November 2021, the company had 33,833 stores in 80 c ...
, and a Kroger Pharmacy. On June 1, 2017, Kroger opened their second Fresh Eats. Kroger is also going to convert some Turkey Hill stores into the concept store. The CFO
The chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization that is assigned the primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financi ...
, Mike Schlotman, has called these stores a "small test." Local reaction to this new concept has been positive. The concept was discontinued in March 2020.
In February 2018, Kroger announced that it will be selling its 762 convenience stores to EG Group
EG Group is a British retailer headquartered in Blackburn, United Kingdom, which operates filling stations, convenience stores and fast-food restaurants in Europe, the United States and Australia. The group was created through the combination o ...
, a British service station operator, for $2.15 billion. They operate under the ''Turkey Hill'', ''Loaf 'N Jug'', ''Kwik Shop'', ''Tom Thumb'' and ''Quik Stop'' banners. Kroger will retain just over 20 convenience stores. Kroger's supermarket fuel centers are not included in the sale. The sale was closed on April 20, 2018.
On April 10, 2018, Kroger announced plans to hire an estimated 11,000 new employees. An estimated 2,000 managerial positions will be filled by the new hires. With the addition of these new hires, the total number of people employed by the company is close to half a million.
On May 17, 2018, Kroger announced a partnership with Ocado
Ocado Group is a British business based in Hatfield, England, which licenses grocery technology. It owns a 50% share of Ocado.com (the other 50% is owned by UK retailer Marks & Spencer) and licenses its grocery fulfilment technology to global ...
, a UK-based online supermarket. The partnership is designed to improve Kroger's ecommerce program, including online ordering, automated fulfillment, and home delivery via the construction of 20 new, automated fulfillment centers. , five locations have been identified for the new warehouses, and two are under construction. Kroger has taken advantage of its investment in online shopping capability to grow rapidly during the pandemic. In 2020, Kroger's online sales grew by 116%, to over $10B annually.
On May 24, 2018, Kroger announced they were acquiring Home Chef
Home Chef is a Chicago, Illinois-based meal kit and food delivery company that delivers pre-portioned ingredients and recipes to subscribers weekly in the United States. According to the company it delivers three million meals monthly to its subsc ...
for $200 million with an additional $500 million in incentives if certain targets are met by Home Chef.
On June 13, 2018, Kroger Mid-Atlantic announced the Kroger branding will be leaving the Raleigh-Durham area by eliminating all 14 Kroger-branded stores, eight of which will transition to Harris Teeter (also owned by Kroger). One will become a Crunch Fitness and another will become a Food Lion. The fate for the remaining four stores is unclear.
In July 2018, Kroger officials backed off a Net 90 payment plan to the produce industry.
In October 2018, Kroger announced online wine delivery to 14 states in partnership with DRINKS. Customers can select assorted wines in 6-bottle or 12-bottle packs.
On December 4, 2018, Kroger announced a deal to sell food inside drugstore Walgreens
Walgreen Company, d/b/a Walgreens, is an American company that operates the second-largest pharmacy store chain in the United States behind CVS Health. It specializes in filling prescriptions, health and wellness products, health information, an ...
. Kroger Express will offer meal kits and other meal solutions.
In the light of increased self-checkout usage via kiosk or smartphone app in 2019, Kroger is gradually shifting towards creating more self-checkout smartphone apps and lanes than cashier lanes. The company has been investing millions of dollars, in replacing many cashier stations with automation by 2023. As many other supermarkets (such as Walmart
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...
, Target
Target may refer to:
Physical items
* Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports
** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports
** Aiming point, in field artillery, fi ...
, etc.) are also shifting towards automation, and displacing cashiers in the near future.
In March 2019, Kroger announced it was expanding its service with robotics company, Nuro
Nuro is an American robotics company based in Mountain View, California. Founded by Jiajun Zhu and Dave Ferguson, Nuro develops autonomous delivery vehicles and is the first company to receive an autonomous exemption from the National Highway ...
to Houston, Texas with Nuro's autonomous Priuses.
In August 2019, Kroger began charging customers between $0.50 and $3.50 for receiving cash back while making purchases with debit cards. The new fees were first test marketed in March at Kansas area Dillons
Dillons is a grocery supermarket chain based in Hutchinson, Kansas, and is a division of Kroger. Other banners under Dillon Stores Division include Gerbes in Missouri and Baker's in Omaha, Nebraska. Dillons operates grocery stores throughout Ka ...
stores, a Kroger-owned supermarket chain, before the new fees were rolled out to other Kroger-owned supermarket banners in the rest of the nation.
In September 2019, Kroger announced a partnership with th
Plant Based Food Association
(PFBA) to test a plant-based meat retail concept in 60 stores in Denver, and parts of Indiana and Illinois.
In November 2019, Kroger unveiled an updated logo for their stores and company, with the '"Fresh For Everyone" tagline and the "Krojis". The company also announced an expansion of its online wine delivery program into Arizona. In partnership with DRINKS, the service is now available in 19 states plus Washington D.C.
In December 2019, Kroger was named the second-largest grocer in the nation with $110 billion in 2016 sales. The same month, ''USA Today'' listed Kroger—and its brands—as the top supermarket (based on Google searches, Yelp data and 24/7 Tempo's research) in Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia.
2020s
According to a ''PBS NewsHour
''PBS NewsHour'' is an American evening television news program broadcast on over 350 PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virg ...
'' February 13, 2021 broadcast, during the pandemic, Kroger provided their essential workers
A key worker, critical worker or essential worker is a public-sector or private-sector employee who is considered to provide an essential service. The term has been used in the United Kingdom in the context of workers who may find it difficult t ...
a "hazard pay"—that the company called a "hero pay"—in the form of US$2 dollars an hour raise from the end of March 2020, until mid-May, 2020, when the "hero pay" ended. In January 2021, the Long Beach City Council in California, passed an ordinance making it mandatory for some large grocery stores—like Kroger—to provide their essential workers hazard pay of US$4 dollars an hour "effective immediately for 120 days." The ordinance affected "companies with more than 300 workers nationwide and more than 15 employees per store." Seattle and Washington passed similar ordinances. In response, in early February, Kroger announced the "closure and permanent termination of the "entirety of the operations" of some of their stores n April 2021which includes a Ralphs and a Food4Less in Long Beach—"for economic reasons including the economic cost mandated by the Long Beach ordinance requiring an increase in employee wages, four dollars an hour." The United Food and Commercial Workers
The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) is a labor union representing approximately 1.3 million workers in the United States and Canada in industries including retail; meatpacking, food processing and manufacturing; hosp ...
(UFCW), with members whose jobs have been terminated, "view the closures as a warning to other cities considering hazard pay mandates." Andrea Zinder, president of the UFCW Local 324 that represents employees at the two stores—Ralphs and a Food4Less—said that compared to the same time period in 2019 both stores saw an increase of about 30% in sales. In 2020, during the pandemic, Kroger's earnings increased by 87.7%. Kroger's quarterly revenues as reported by November 20, 2020, were US$29.72 billion, and the corporation's per-share earnings and dividends grew at a rapid rate in 2020. Its dividend increase was about 14% annually.
Starting in early 2020, Berkshire Hathaway began buying shares of Kroger, and by August 2021 became a top ten shareholder.
In 2021, the company was reported to have been breached by a third-party hack which compromised the pharmacy records of Kroger owned Fred Meyer and QFC stores' customers.
On August 2, 2021, Kroger announced that it had elected Elaine Chao
Elaine Lan Chao (born March 26, 1953) is an American businesswoman and former government official. A member of the Republican Party, she served as the 18th United States secretary of transportation in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2021, ...
, formerly Secretary of Labor
The United States Secretary of Labor is a member of the Cabinet of the United States, and as the head of the United States Department of Labor, controls the department, and enforces and suggests laws involving unions, the workplace, and all ot ...
under President George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
and Secretary of Transportation
A secretary, administrative professional, administrative assistant, executive assistant, administrative officer, administrative support specialist, clerk, military assistant, management assistant, office secretary, or personal assistant is a wh ...
under President Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
, to its board of directors. The news was met with backlash from Kroger customers on Twitter, with calls for a boycott trending nationally, due to her ties to the Trump administration and to her husband, Mitch McConnell.
On September 23, 2021, a mass shooting occurred at a Kroger location in Collierville, Tennessee
Collierville is a town in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, and a suburb located in the Memphis metropolitan area. With a population of 51,324 in the 2020 census, Collierville is the third largest municipality in the county after Memphis ...
. One person was killed and 13 others were injured before the gunman, identified as 29-year-old Uk Thang, committed suicide by gunshot. Thang was working at the store as a third-party vendor. In the aftermath of the shooting, Kroger offered counseling services for its employees and closed down the store until November 10.
In September 2021, Kroger tweaked its logo to add the "Fresh Cart" symbol. The symbol is an abstract shopping cart
A shopping cart (American English), trolley (British English, Australian English), or buggy (Southern American English, Appalachian English), also known by a variety of other names, is a wheeled cart supplied by a shop or store, especially ...
with the basket being citrus
''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering plant, flowering trees and shrubs in the rue family, Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as Orange (fruit), oranges, Lemon, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and lim ...
slices.
In October 2021, Kroger announced an expansion into South Florida with its online delivery service, 'Kroger Delivery'. To do this, Kroger will build two new automated fulfilment centres assisted and facilitated by the UK-based technology company Ocado Group
Ocado Group is a British business based in Hatfield, England, which licenses grocery technology. It owns a 50% share of Ocado.com (the other 50% is owned by UK retailer Marks & Spencer) and licenses its grocery fulfilment technology to global ...
. Kroger Delivery is also set to launch in the Northeast of the US and expand its operations in California, to be followed by sites in Texas, Georgia, Maryland, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and North Carolina. The company launched its online delivery services in Central Florida earlier in 2021.
On April 5, 2022, Kroger launched Kroger Restaurant Supply in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, a new business distributing food and related supplies to restaurants, bakeries, and catering companies. For Kroger, this move into foodservice distribution represents an expansion beyond its core retail grocery operations.
On October 14, 2022, Kroger announced a merger with Albertsons
Albertsons Companies, Inc. is an American grocery company founded and headquartered in Boise, Idaho.
With 2,253 stores as of the third quarter of fiscal year 2020 and 270,000 employees as of fiscal year 2019, the company is the second-large ...
in a deal worth $24.6billion, combining both companies into one entity, but divesting some stores to secure regulatory approval, with the transaction expected to close in early 2024.
Finances
For the fiscal year 2020, Kroger reported earnings of US$1.907 billion, with an annual revenue of US$122.286 billion, an increase of 0.4% over the previous fiscal cycle. Kroger's shares traded at over $32 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at US$25.9 billion in April 2020.
Carbon footprint
Kroger reported Total CO2e emissions (Direct + Indirect) for the twelve months ending 31 December 2020 at 5,090 Kt (−659 /−11.5% y-o-y).[Alt URL]
/ref> Reported emissions have been declining since 2016.
Chains
Number of locations by banner
*Baker's
A baker is someone who primarily bakes and sells bread.
Baker and Bakers may also refer to:
Brands and companies
* Baker Skateboards
* Baker's Chocolate
* Baker's Drive-Thru, chain of fast-food restaurants in Southern California
* Baker Hughes, ...
: 11 locations ( NE)
* City Market: 34 locations ( CO, UT and WY)
*Dillons
Dillons is a grocery supermarket chain based in Hutchinson, Kansas, and is a division of Kroger. Other banners under Dillon Stores Division include Gerbes in Missouri and Baker's in Omaha, Nebraska. Dillons operates grocery stores throughout Ka ...
: 63 locations ( KS)
*Food 4 Less
Food 4 Less is the name of several grocery store chains, the largest of which is currently owned by Kroger. It is a no-frills grocery store where the customers bag their own groceries at the checkout. Kroger operates Food 4 Less stores in the ...
: 101 locations ( CA, IL and IN)
*Foods Co.: 20 locations ( CA)
*Fred Meyer
Fred Meyer is an American chain of hypermarket superstores founded in 1922 in Portland, Oregon, USA, by Fred G. Meyer. The stores are found in the northwest U.S., within the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska. The company merged w ...
: 132 locations ( AK, ID, OR and WA)
* Fry's: 126 locations ( AZ)
*Gerbes
Dillons is a grocery supermarket chain based in Hutchinson, Kansas, and is a division of Kroger. Other banners under Dillon Stores Division include Gerbes in Missouri and Baker's Supermarkets, Baker's in Omaha, Nebraska. Dillons operates grocer ...
: 6 locations ( MO)
*Harris Teeter
Harris Teeter Supermarkets, Inc., also known as Harris Teeter Neighborhood Food & Pharmacy, is an American supermarket chain based in Matthews, North Carolina, a suburb of Charlotte. , the chain operates 261 stores in seven South Atlantic states ...
: 258 locations ( DE, DC, FL, GA, MD, NC, SC and VA)
* JayC: 22 locations ( IN)
*King Soopers
King Soopers is a supermarket brand of Kroger located in the Rocky Mountains of the United States. It started as its own brand and, today, is headquartered in Denver, Colorado.
King Soopers has a significant presence in the state of Colorado on ...
: 117 locations ( CO and WY)
*Kroger: 1,238 locations ( AL, AR, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MI, MS, MO, OH, SC, TN, TX, VA and WV)
* Mariano's: 44 locations ( IL)
*Metro Market: 21 locations ( WI)
* Pay Less: 9 locations ( IN)
*Pick 'n Save: 84 locations ( WI)
*QFC
Quality Food Centers, better known as QFC, is a supermarket chain based in Bellevue, Washington, with 62 stores in the Puget Sound region of the state of Washington and in the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area. QFC is a subsidiary of Kroger.
...
: 59 locations ( OR and WA)
*Ralphs
Ralphs is an American supermarket chain in Southern California. The largest subsidiary of Cincinnati-based Kroger, it is the oldest such chain west of the Mississippi River. Kroger also operates stores under the Food 4 Less and Foods Co. names ...
: 185 locations ( CA and KY)
*Ruler Foods
Ruler Foods, Inc. is a discount warehouse store grocery chain in the United States, currently owned by Kroger, and headquartered in Seymour, Indiana. It is a no-frills grocery store where 80% of the offerings are Kroger Brand, the customers bag ...
: 48 locations ( IL, IN, KY, MO, OH and TN)
* Smith's: 141 locations ( AZ, ID, MT, NV, NM, UT and WY)
Kroger Marketplace
Kroger Marketplace is a chain of big-box store
A big-box store (also hyperstore, supercenter, superstore, or megastore) is a physically large retail establishment, usually part of a chain of stores. The term sometimes also refers, by extension, to the company that operates the store. The t ...
s. The brand was introduced in 2004 in the Columbus, Ohio
Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...
, area, which lost the Big Bear
Big Bear, also known as ( cr, ᒥᐢᑕᐦᐃᒪᐢᑿ; – 17 January 1888[Mistahimaskwa](_blank)
...
and Big Bear Plus chains in Penn Traffic
The Penn Traffic Company was founded in 1854 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, as a food service company for stagecoaches. It eventually became a general-merchandise department store but by the early 1960s had also returned to the food business through ...
's Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, whe ...
. The Kroger Marketplace format is based on the Fry's Marketplace stores that the Arizona division of Kroger is currently operating. There are currently a total of 188 marketplaces.[
Similar to rival chains ]Meijer
Meijer Inc. (, ; stylized as meijer) is an American supercenter chain that primarily operates throughout the Midwest. Its corporate headquarters are in Walker, Michigan, which is a part of the Grand Rapids metropolitan area. Founded in 1934 as ...
, Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
, Kmart
Kmart Corporation ( , doing business as Kmart and stylized as kmart) is an American retail company that owns a chain of big box department stores. The company is headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States.
The company was inc ...
, Target
Target may refer to:
Physical items
* Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports
** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports
** Aiming point, in field artillery, fi ...
, Walmart
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...
, and Albertsons
Albertsons Companies, Inc. is an American grocery company founded and headquartered in Boise, Idaho.
With 2,253 stores as of the third quarter of fiscal year 2020 and 270,000 employees as of fiscal year 2019, the company is the second-large ...
, and modeled after Kroger-owned Fred Meyer, these stores contain multiple departments. In addition to the grocery department, they usually contain a Fred Meyer Jewelers
Fred Meyer Jewelers is a national chain of jewelers. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fred Meyer and Kroger. The company also operates under the name Littman Jewelers.
History
Fred Meyer Jewelers started in 1973 as a catalog showroom conce ...
, Starbucks
Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is the world's largest coffeehouse chain.
As of November 2021, the company had 33,833 stores in 80 c ...
, Donatos Pizza
Donatos Pizza is a pizza delivery restaurant franchisor headquartered in Gahanna, Ohio, United States. It has nearly 200 locations in eleven states, with the majority of locations in Ohio. Donatos is also served at several venue outlets, inclu ...
, and an in-store bank, as well as sections for toys, appliances, home furnishings and bed and bath, something that Big Bear once had in their stores in the Columbus area.
In 2005, the company began renovating many ''Kroger Food & Drug'' stores in Ohio for an expanded and remodeled look, converting them to the ''Kroger Marketplace'' format. In February 2006, Kroger announced plans for two new Kroger Marketplace stores to open by the end of the summer in Cincinnati suburbs Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...
and Liberty Township. The store in Liberty Township opened in July 2006. On October 5, 2006, a new Kroger Marketplace opened in Gahanna
Gahanna ( ) is a city situated in northeast Franklin County, Ohio, United States. It is a suburb of Columbus. The population was 35,726 at the 2020 census. It was founded in 1849.
History
Gahanna was founded along the Big Walnut Creek in 184 ...
. With the Gahanna opening, the number of Kroger Marketplace stores is six, four in the Columbus area and two in the Cincinnati area. Two more stores were planned in 2007, one in Middletown (which opened in April 2007, after the old store was razed and made part of the current parking lot) and one in Englewood.
In 2011, the Elder-Beerman
The Elder-Beerman Stores Corp., commonly known as Elder-Beerman, was an American chain of department stores founded in 1883 and whose last stores closed in 2018. The chain, based primarily in the Midwestern United States, was composed of 31 stor ...
in Centerville, Ohio
Centerville is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States. A core suburb of Metro Dayton, its population was 24,240 as of the 2020 census.
Geography
Centerville is located at (39.638709, -84.148087). Although the city is located primar ...
was demolished, and a new marketplace has been built in its place. It has a fuel center and opened on December 8. This marketplace is the largest Kroger store ever built from ground up to date at 147,000 square feet.
Two more stores opened in the Cincinnati area, in the Northern Kentucky suburbs of Hebron
Hebron ( ar, الخليل or ; he, חֶבְרוֹן ) is a Palestinian. city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judaean Mountains, it lies above sea level. The second-largest city in the West Bank (after East J ...
and Walton Walton may refer to:
People
* Walton (given name)
* Walton (surname)
* Susana, Lady Walton (1926–2010), Argentine writer
Places
Canada
*Walton, Nova Scotia, a community
** Walton River (Nova Scotia)
*Walton, Ontario, a hamlet
United Kingdom ...
which were completed in November 2008. Three Kroger Marketplace stores in Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...
opened in 2009, two in Lexington and one in Newport. Another Marketplace opened in Beavercreek, Ohio
Beavercreek is the largest city in Greene County, Ohio, United States, and is the second-largest suburb of Dayton. The population was 46,549 at the 2020 census. It is part of Metro Dayton. The Beavercreek area was settled in the early 1800s. A ...
. A Mount Orab, Ohio
Mount Orab is a village in Brown County, Ohio, United States. The population was 3,664 at the 2010 census.
History
Mount Orab was laid out in 1850. The village's name most likely is derived from Mount Horeb, a place in the Hebrew Bible. The Cin ...
, store opened in the spring of 2010. Kroger opened a new store in North Augusta, South Carolina
North Augusta is a city in Aiken and Edgefield counties in the U.S. state of South Carolina, on the north bank of the Savannah River. The population was 21,348 at the 2010 census. The city is included in the Central Savannah River Area (CSRA) ...
. In 2015, a 145,000 square foot Marketplace was opened in the Cincinnati suburb of Oakley.
The first Kroger Marketplace store in Texas opened on October 9, 2009, in the Waterside Marketplace in Richmond, Texas
Richmond is a city in and the county seat of Fort Bend County, Texas, Fort Bend County, Texas, United States. The city is located within the metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city population was 11,627. It is home to the founder ...
. The second Kroger Marketplace store in Rosenberg, Texas
Rosenberg is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, within the Greater Houston, Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area and Fort Bend County, Texas, Fort Bend County. The population was 38,282 at the 2020 census, up from 30,61 ...
, opened on December 4, 2009. The third opened in Frisco, Texas
Frisco is a city in Collin and Denton counties in the U.S. state of Texas. It is part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex and about from both Dallas Love Field and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Its population was 200,509 at the 2 ...
, in early 2010. The fourth, in Willis, Texas
Willis is a city in Montgomery County, Texas, United States, located eight miles north of Conroe in north central Montgomery County. The city began to develop in 1870 after what is now the Union Pacific Railroad built track through the area. As a ...
, opened on August 11, 2011. Other Kroger Marketplace stores in Texas are in Little Elm, Texas
Little Elm is a city in Denton County, Texas, United States, and a part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is an extended suburb of Denton; its population was 46,453 as of the 2020 census. In 2000, the census population was at 3,646. By the ...
; Fort Worth's Alliance Town Center; Mansfield; Wylie, Texas
Wylie is a city and northeastern suburb of Dallas, that was once solely located in Collin County, Texas, Collin County, but now extends into neighboring Dallas County, Texas, Dallas and Rockwall County, Texas, Rockwall counties in the U.S. state o ...
; and Baytown, Texas.
The first Kroger Marketplace store in Tennessee opened in Farragut, Tennessee
Farragut is a suburban town located in Knox and Loudon counties in the State of Tennessee, United States. The town's population was 23,506 at the 2020 census. It is included in the Knoxville Metropolitan Area. The town is named in honor of Hispa ...
(a small suburb near Knoxville
Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state's ...
) at the end of 2008, and a second store in Thompson's Station, Tennessee
Thompson's Station is a town in Williamson County, Tennessee. The population has grown from 2,194 at the 2010 Census to 7,485 in the 2020 Census. Several locations in Thompson's Station listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places inclu ...
, about south of Nashville
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...
, opened in early 2009. A third location opened in Gallatin, Tennessee
Gallatin is a city in and the county seat of Sumner County, Tennessee. The population was 30,278 at the 2010 census and 44,431 at the 2020 census. Named for United States Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, the city was established on ...
, on March 11, 2010.
The first Kroger Marketplace in Arkansas opened in August 2010 on Chenal Parkway in Little Rock, Arkansas
(The Little Rock, The "Little Rock")
, government_type = council-manager government, Council-manager
, leader_title = List of mayors of Little Rock, Arkansas, Mayor
, leader_name = Frank Scott Jr.
, leader_ ...
. Locations also opened in 2012 in Conway, Arkansas
Conway is a city in the U.S. state of Arkansas and the county seat of Faulkner County, located in the state's most populous Metropolitan Statistical Area, Central Arkansas. Although considered a suburb of Little Rock, Conway is unusual in that ...
and 2014 in Jonesboro, Arkansas
Jonesboro is a city located on Crowley's Ridge in the northeastern corner of the U.S. State of Arkansas. Jonesboro is one of two county seats of Craighead County. According to the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 78,576 and is the f ...
.
The first Kroger Marketplace in Virginia opened on Midlothian Turnpike
U.S. Route 60 (US 60) in the Commonwealth of Virginia runs west to east through the central part of the state, generally close to and paralleling the Interstate 64 corridor, except for the crossing of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and in the Sou ...
in Richmond, Virginia
(Thus do we reach the stars)
, image_map =
, mapsize = 250 px
, map_caption = Location within Virginia
, pushpin_map = Virginia#USA
, pushpin_label = Richmond
, pushpin_m ...
, on the site of the former Cloverleaf Mall
Stonebridge Shopping Center, formerly Cloverleaf Mall, is a shopping mall located in Chesterfield County, Virginia on U.S. Route 60 just west of State Route 150. The mall opened in 1972 and featured two anchor stores, J. C. Penney, and Sears. A ...
on December 6, 2012. Another Marketplace opened in Virginia Beach, Virginia
Virginia Beach is an independent city located on the southeastern coast of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The population was 459,470 at the 2020 census. Although mostly suburban in character, it is the most populous city ...
, at the site of a former Super Kmart, on July 31, 2013. The third location opened in December 2013 in the Staples Mill shopping Center in Henrico County
Henrico County , officially the County of Henrico, is located in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 334,389 making it the fifth-most populous county in Virginia. Henrico County is incl ...
. A fourth location opened on October 15, 2014, in Portsmouth, Virginia
Portsmouth is an independent city in southeast Virginia and across the Elizabeth River from Norfolk. As of the 2020 census, the population was 97,915. It is part of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area.
The Norfolk Naval Shipyard and Naval M ...
, at the site of the former I.C. Norcom High School
I. C. Norcom High School is a public high school in Portsmouth, Virginia. It is administered by Portsmouth City Public Schools. The school colors are maroon and grey, and the mascot is the Greyhounds. The school was named after Israel Charles Nor ...
.
The first Kroger Marketplace in Mississippi opened on September 16, 2016, in Hernando (a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...
) to much fanfare. This store was formally a Kroger Food & Drug with twelve aisles, now rebuilt with sixty-four, in addition to having a Starbucks, ClickList, and expanded deli inside.
The first Kroger Marketplace in Indiana opened on September 29, 2011, on Dupont Road on Fort Wayne's northwest side. This store is a rebuilt Kroger Food & Drug. A second Kroger Marketplace opened on October 4, 2012, from a rebuilt Scott's Food and Pharmacy in the Village at Coventry on the southwest side of Fort Wayne. These two stores are part of a $100 million expansion project in the Fort Wayne area. In October 2016, it was announced that a Kroger Marketplace will open in La Porte, Indiana
La Porte (French for "The Door") is a city in LaPorte County, Indiana, United States, of which it is the county seat. Its population was estimated to be 21,341 in 2022. It is one of the two principal cities of the Michigan City-La Porte, India ...
within the NewPorte Landing development. Construction of the new 123,000 square foot store is expected to begin early in 2018.
The first Kroger Marketplace in Michigan opened on June 14, 2013, at Sterns and Secor Roads in Lambertville (a small-sized suburb north of Toledo, Ohio
Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according ...
). Formerly a conventional Kroger store, the square footage increased from 68,000 to 133,000 square feet. It carries toys, home essentials, apparel and shoes in addition to groceries. The state's second store opened in 2014 in Shelby Township on property that already contained a 2010-built Fuel Center, replacing a smaller Kroger store across Hayes Road in neighboring Macomb Township, which was soon converted into an Emagine Entertainment
Emagine Entertainment Inc. is an American movie theater chain based in Troy, Michigan, Troy, Michigan, operating 28 cinemas in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Emagine is ranked as the 9th largest theatre chain in North Am ...
movie theater
A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall ( Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...
. Three further locations opened in 2016, one in White Lake on the site of what was once one of Kmart's "green" prototype stores and directly adjacent to the smaller Kroger store that this location replaced, a second Shelby Township location at 26 Mile Road and Van Dyke Avenue, and one at 12 Mile Road and Stephenson Highway in Royal Oak
The Royal Oak is the English oak tree within which the future King Charles II of England hid to escape the Roundheads following the Battle of Worcester in 1651. The tree was in Boscobel Wood, which was part of the park of Boscobel House. C ...
. A sixth location opened on Fort Street in Southgate
Southgate or South Gate may refer to:
Places Australia
*Southgate, Sylvania
*Southgate Arts and Leisure Precinct, an area within Southbank, Victoria
Canada
*Southgate, Ontario, a township in Grey County
* Southgate, Middlesex County, Ontario
Ed ...
on September 20, 2017. This store, which is a former Super Kmart, is the largest Kroger location in Michigan, with seventy aisles along with a small cafe section and dedicated ClickList parking spaces.
Manufacturing and distribution
Distribution and logistics
Food distribution and buying takes place under various subsidiaries and divisions. These include:
* Kroger Group Cooperative, Inc.
* Kroger Group, Inc.
* Peytons
* WESCO
* Inter-American Products
Kroger operates its own fleet of trucks and trailers to distribute products to its various stores, in addition to contracts with various trucking companies.[ In June 2018, Kroger announced testing driverless cars for delivering groceries. For this, Kroger is partnering with autonomous car company ]Nuro
Nuro is an American robotics company based in Mountain View, California. Founded by Jiajun Zhu and Dave Ferguson, Nuro develops autonomous delivery vehicles and is the first company to receive an autonomous exemption from the National Highway ...
.
In addition to stocking a variety of regional brand products, The Kroger Company also employs one of the largest networks of private label manufacturing in the country. Thirty-three plants (either wholly owned or used with operating agreements) in seventeen states create about 40% of Kroger's private label products.[ Similar to most major supermarket retailers, Kroger uses a three-tiered ]private label
A private label, also called a private brand or private-label brand, is a brand owned by a company, offered by that company alongside and competing with brands from other businesses. A private-label brand is almost always offered exclusively by th ...
marketing strategy. One private brand emphasizes no-frills products at the lowest possible price, another is intended to be comparable to leading national brands but a better value and the third is a premium (often organic) brand.
Manufacturing plants
Dairies
Kroger operates 18 dairy plants:
* Centennial Farms Dairy in Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
* Compton Creamery in Compton, California
Compton is a city in southern Los Angeles County, California, United States, situated south of downtown Los Angeles. Compton is one of the oldest cities in the county and, on May 11, 1888, was the eighth city in Los Angeles County to incorporat ...
* Crossroad Farms Dairy in Indianapolis, Indiana
Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mari ...
* Heritage Farms Dairy in Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Murfreesboro is a city in and county seat of Rutherford County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 152,769 according to the 2020 census, up from 108,755 residents certified in 2010. Murfreesboro is located in the Nashville metropol ...
* Hunter Farms Dairy in High Point, North Carolina
High Point is a city in the Piedmont Triad region of the United States, U.S. state of North Carolina. Most of the city is in Guilford County, North Carolina, Guilford County, with parts extending into Randolph County, North Carolina, Randolph, ...
* Jackson Hutchinson Dairy in Hutchinson, Kansas
Hutchinson is the largest city and county seat in Reno County, Kansas, United States, and located on the Arkansas River. It has been home to salt mines since 1887, thus its nickname of "Salt City", but locals call it "Hutch". As of the 2020 cen ...
* Layton Dairy in Layton, Utah
Layton is a city in Davis County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Ogden-Clearfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 81,773, with 2022 estimates showing a slight increase to 84,665. Layton ...
* Michigan Dairy in Livonia, Michigan
Livonia is a city in Wayne County, Michigan, Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 95,535 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, which ranked it as Michigan's ninth most-populated municipality.
Livonia is a part ...
* Mountain View Foods in Denver, Colorado
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
* Pace Dairy—Rochester in Rochester, Minnesota
Rochester is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Olmsted County. Located on rolling bluffs on the Zumbro River's south fork in Southeast Minnesota, the city is the home and birthplace of the renowned Mayo Clinic.
Acco ...
* Pace Dairy—Indiana in Crawfordsville, Indiana
Crawfordsville is a city in Montgomery County in west central Indiana, United States, west by northwest of Indianapolis. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 16,306. The city is the county seat of Montgomery County, the only cha ...
* Riverside Creamery in Riverside, California
Riverside is a city in and the county seat of Riverside County, California, United States, in the Inland Empire metropolitan area. It is named for its location beside the Santa Ana River. It is the most populous city in the Inland Empire an ...
* Swan Island Dairy in Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
* Tamarack Farms Dairy in Newark, Ohio
Newark ( ) is a city serving as the county seat of Licking County, Ohio, United States, east of Columbus, at the junction of the forks of the Licking River. The population was 49,934 at the 2020 census, which makes it the 15th largest city in ...
* Tolleson Dairy in Tolleson, Arizona
Tolleson is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, Maricopa County, Arizona, United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of the city was 7,216 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, up from 6,545 in 2010.
History ...
* Vandervoort's Dairy in Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...
* Westover Dairy in Lynchburg, Virginia
Lynchburg is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. First settled in 1757 by ferry owner John Lynch (1740–1820), John Lynch, the city's populati ...
* Winchester Farms Dairy in Winchester, Kentucky
Winchester is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of Clark County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 18,368 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Lexington-Fayette, KY Metropolitan Statistical Area. Winchester is located ro ...
Bakeries
Kroger operates nine plants:
* Anderson Bakery in Anderson, South Carolina
Anderson is a city in and the county seat of Anderson County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 28,106 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, and the city was the center of an urbanized area of 75,702. It is one of the prin ...
* Clackamas Bakery in Clackamas, Oregon
Clackamas is an unincorporated community and former census-designated place (CDP) in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States, and is a suburb of Portland. The population was approximately 7,000 .
Clackamas is home to Camp Withycombe, which is a ...
* Country Oven Bakery in Bowling Green, Kentucky
Bowling Green is a home rule-class city and the county seat of Warren County, Kentucky, United States. Founded by pioneers in 1798, Bowling Green was the provisional capital of Confederate Kentucky during the American Civil War. As of the 2 ...
* Indianapolis Bakery in Indianapolis, Indiana
Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mari ...
* K.B. Specialty Foods in Greensburg, Indiana
Greensburg is a city in and the county seat of Decatur County, Indiana. The population was 11,492 at the time of the 2010 census.
History
Greensburg was laid out in 1822. The founder, Thomas Hendricks Sr.'s wife being a native of Greensburg, Pen ...
* King Soopers Bakery in Denver, Colorado
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
* La Habra Bakery in La Habra, California
La Habra (archaic spelling of ''La Abra'', ) is a city in the northwestern corner of Orange County, California, United States. In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 60,239. A related city, La Habra Heights, is located to the north of ...
* Layton Dough in Layton, Utah
Layton is a city in Davis County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Ogden-Clearfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 81,773, with 2022 estimates showing a slight increase to 84,665. Layton ...
* RCK Foods in Kenosha, Wisconsin
Kenosha () is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the seat of Kenosha County. Per the 2020 census, the population was 99,986 which made it the fourth-largest city in Wisconsin. Situated on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, Kenos ...
Grocery items
Kroger operates seven grocery plants:
* America's Beverage Co. in Irving, Texas
Irving is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. Located in Dallas County, it is also an inner ring suburb of Dallas. The city of Irving is part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. According to a 2019 estimate from the United States Census Bureau, ...
: soft drinks, waters
* Delight Products in Springfield, Tennessee
Springfield is a city in and the county seat of Robertson County, Tennessee, Robertson County, which is located in Middle Tennessee on the northern border of the state. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city's population was 18, ...
: dry dog and cat foods
* Kenlake Foods in Murray, Kentucky
Murray is a home rule-class city in Calloway County, Kentucky, United States. It is the seat of Calloway County and the 19th-largest city in Kentucky. The city's population was 17,741 during the 2010 U.S. census, and its micropolitan area's po ...
: nuts, hot cereal, cornmeal, powdered drinks
* Pontiac Foods in Pontiac, South Carolina
Pontiac is an unincorporated community in Richland County, South Carolina, United States.
Pontiac is the location of Pontiac Foods, a coffee, spice, rice and beans plant owned by The Kroger Company. Pontiac Foods has been in Pontiac for over 30 ...
: coffee, seasonings, spices, rice, noodles, sauces
* Springdale Ice Cream & Beverage in Springdale, Ohio
Springdale is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States. It is a suburb of Cincinnati. The population was 11,007 at the 2020 census.
Geography
Springdale is located at (39.293037, -84.483003).
According to the United States Census Bureau, ...
: soft drinks, waters, ice cream
* State Avenue in Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
: salad dressings, red sauces, syrups, broths, jams and jellies
* Tara Foods in Albany, Georgia
Albany ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Georgia. Located on the Flint River, it is the seat of Dougherty County, and is the sole incorporated city in that county. Located in southwest Georgia, it is the principal city of the Albany, Georgia ...
: peanut butter, flavorings, steak sauces, vinegar, cooking wines, lemon juice, soy sauce
Private label brands
Kroger offers a collection of its own branded products, referred to by the retailer as "Our Brands". The products are produced and sold in quality tiers, and account for over 30% of the retailer's unit sales.
Banner Brand
Banner Brand items are goods that bear the name of Kroger or its subsidiaries (i.e., Ralphs, King Soopers, etc.) or make reference to them (i.e., Big K), and are offered exclusively within Kroger-owned stores. These products are marketed to customers as budget-friendly, and account for over $13 billion in annual sales. Many of Kroger's health and beauty goods, one of the company's fastest-growing private label categories, are manufactured by third-party providers; these products include goods like ibuprofen
Ibuprofen is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) that is used for treating pain, fever, and inflammation. This includes painful menstrual periods, migraines, and rheumatoid arthritis. It may also be used to close a patent ductus arte ...
and contact lens solution.
Private Selection
Products marked ''Private Selection'' are offered to compare with gourmet brands or regional brands that may be considered more upscale than the standard Kroger brand products.
Simple Truth
''Simple Truth'' is Kroger's flagship natural and organic brand, and has grown quickly since its launch in 2012. The brand's launch marked the first time Kroger had delved into making its own gluten-free products, including flour mixes, bread, etc. The Simple Truth brand became the first Kroger offering to be introduced in China, on Alibaba's Tmall
Tmall (), formerly Taobao Mall, is a Chinese-language website for business-to-consumer (B2C) online retail, spun off from Taobao, operated in China by Alibaba Group. It is a platform for local Chinese and international businesses to sell brand-n ...
platform. Simple Truth reached $2 billion in annual sales in 2018.
Other private label brands
In addition to its core brands, Kroger's manufacturing creates a variety department-specific brands. These are featured especially in Fred Meyer stores, where more than half the goods sold are non-food, or in the smaller Fred Meyer-based Marketplace stores. The brands listed below may be found in various Kroger-owned stores.
* Abound – natural pet food
* Bakery Fresh Goodness – fresh-baked foods
* Bloom Haus – floral arrangements
* Comforts – baby products
* Dip – fast fashion
Fast fashion is a term used to describe the clothing industry's business model of replicating recent catwalk trends and High fashion, high-fashion designs, mass production, mass-producing them at a low cost, and bringing them to retail stores qui ...
brand designed by Joe Mimran
Joseph Mimran (born 2 December 1952) is a Canadian fashion designer and entrepreneur, best known for founding the Club Monaco and Joe Fresh brands. He was also an investor on the ''Dragons' Den'' television series.[Home Chef
Home Chef is a Chicago, Illinois-based meal kit and food delivery company that delivers pre-portioned ingredients and recipes to subscribers weekly in the United States. According to the company it delivers three million meals monthly to its subsc ...]
– meal kit and food delivery company acquired in 2018
* Luvsome – pet food
* Murray's Cheese
Murray's Cheese is an artisanal cheese and specialty foods retailer and wholesaler based in Greenwich Village in New York City. It was founded in Greenwich Village in 1962 as a spinoff of Glen Alden farms, an egg and dairy wholesaler. The company ...
– artisanal cheese shop founded in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
in 1940
* OfficeWorks – stationery and office supplies
* Pet Pride – pet food
Other operations
Pharmacy Group
Kroger previously owned and operated the SupeRx drug store chain. In 1985, Kroger outbid Rite Aid
Rite Aid Corporation is an American drugstore chain based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1962 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, by Alex Grass under the name Thrift D Discount Center. The company ranked No. 148 in the Fortune 500 lis ...
for the Hook's Drug Stores
Hook's Drug Stores was an Indianapolis, Indiana-based drug store chain which was founded in 1900 by John A. Hook. The chain flourished throughout central Indiana for most of the 20th-century.
Hook's did business under its own banner, the SupeRX D ...
chain, based in Indianapolis
Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...
, Indiana, and combined it with SupeRx to become Hook's-SupeRx. In 1994, Kroger decided to exit the stand-alone drugstore business and sold its Hook's and SupeRx stores to Revco
Revco Discount Drug Stores (known simply as Revco or Revco, D.S.), once based in Twinsburg, Ohio, was a major drug store chain operating through the Ohio Valley, the Mid-Atlantic states, and the Southeastern United States. The chain's stock w ...
, which later was sold to CVS
CVS may refer to:
Organizations
* CVS Health, a US pharmacy chain
** CVS Pharmacy
** CVS Caremark, a prescription benefit management subsidiary
* Council for Voluntary Service, England
* Cable Video Store, former US pay-per-view service
* CVS F ...
.
Today, Kroger operates 2,252 pharmacies, most of which are located inside its supermarkets.[ The Kroger Pharmacies continue as a profitable portion of the business and have been expanding to now include pharmacies in City Market, Dillons, Fred Meyer, Fry's, King Soopers, QFC, Ralphs, Harris Teeter, Smith's Food and Drug, and Kroger Supermarkets.
]
Supermarket Petroleum Group
Since 1998, Kroger has added fuel centers in the parking lots of its supermarkets. More recently, the company has begun opening standalone fuel centers, often near stores whose parking lots could not accommodate a fuel center. As of Q2 2022, Kroger operated 1,629 supermarket fuel centers.[
In 2006, Kroger introduced a new common ]logo
A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wordma ...
for all of its convenience store chains that is now also used at the fuel centers of all of its supermarket chains—a rhombus
In plane Euclidean geometry, a rhombus (plural rhombi or rhombuses) is a quadrilateral whose four sides all have the same length. Another name is equilateral quadrilateral, since equilateral means that all of its sides are equal in length. The ...
with a white, stylized image of the continental United States
The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...
in the center bordered by four colored areas: dark blue representing the Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
, red representing Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, green representing the Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
, and yellow representing the Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...
.
Kroger Personal Finance
Kroger Personal Finance was introduced in 2007 to offer branded Visa cards, mortgages, home equity loans, pet, renter's and home insurance, identity theft protection, and wireless services.[ In 2017, MasterCard became the network for Kroger's newly branded 1-2-3 REWARDS credit card issued by U.S. Bank. In 2019, Kroger banned the use of Visa credit cards (but not debit cards) at two of its subsidiary chains: Foods Co. Supermarkets and Smiths, citing rising costs from premium cards.
]
Kroger Wireless
Kroger Wireless, formerly known as i-wireless
Kroger Wireless LLC is an American mobile virtual network operator providing domestic telecommunications services via the T-Mobile Network. The brand was launched as i-wireless, a Kroger Co. It was trialed in 130 Kroger stores in 2006, before b ...
, is a national private label wireless service provider sold in over 2,200 retail locations within the Kroger family of stores across 31 states. Kroger Wireless service functions over the nationwide Sprint
Sprint may refer to:
Aerospace
*Spring WS202 Sprint, a Canadian aircraft design
*Sprint (missile), an anti-ballistic missile
Automotive and motorcycle
*Alfa Romeo Sprint, automobile produced by Alfa Romeo between 1976 and 1989
*Chevrolet Sprint, ...
network. Customers can choose from "Unlimited" rate plans including unlimited talk/text
Text may refer to:
Written word
* Text (literary theory), any object that can be read, including:
**Religious text, a writing that a religious tradition considers to be sacred
**Text, a verse or passage from scripture used in expository preachin ...
and with data allotments up to and including unlimited data. Kroger Wireless allows customers to purchase phones at select Kroger store locations, via their website, or by bringing their eligible Sprint device for activation.
84.51°
84.51° is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kroger engaged in data science and consumer insights, created in April 2015, as a result of Kroger purchasing the remaining half of its then-joint venture Dunnhumby USA from Tesco
Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...
.
Controversies
In 2008, Greenpeace
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...
started ranking America's major supermarket chains on their seafood sustainability practices because, according to Greenpeace U.S. CEO Phil Radford
Philip David Radford (born January 2, 1976) is an American activist who served as the executive director of Greenpeace USA. He is the founder and President of Progressive Power Lab, an organization that incubates companies and non-profits that bu ...
, "three quarters of global fish stocks are suffering from overfishing, and 90% of top marine predators are already gone." Criteria included the number of threatened fish species supermarkets sold, their seafood purchasing policies, and ocean legislation policies they supported. In 2013, Kroger was noted for carrying 17 out of 22 Red
List species, four of which are in the top list of said species.
In 2014, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America
Everytown for Gun Safety is an American nonprofit organization which advocates for gun control and against gun violence. Everytown was created in 2013 when Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America joined forc ...
, a national gun control organization backed by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a ca ...
, began a campaign to pressure the Kroger chain to ban the open carry of firearms in all of its stores. The group decided to take action in response to demonstrations by open carry activists in Kroger stores in Ohio and Texas after conducting research that identified more than a dozen shootings on Kroger property since 2012. Kroger rebuffed their demand, stating, "If the local gun laws are to allow open carry, we'll certainly allow customers to do that based on what the local laws are. We don't believe it's up to us to legislate what the local gun control laws should be. It's up to the local legislators to decide to do that. So we follow local laws, we ask our customers to be respectful to the other people they are shopping with. And we really haven't had any issues inside of our stores as a result of that."
Kroger was criticized in 2021 when, rather than pay a temporary bonus to workers during the pandemic mandated by the city of Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California.
Incorporate ...
, it closed its stores in that community instead.
In July, 2021, a wrongful death lawsuit was filed against Kroger by the family of worker Evan Seyfried. Seyfried committed suicide after allegedly enduring abuse at the Kroger location in Milford, Ohio, where he had worked for 19 years. According to the lawsuit, Seyfried was bullied for wearing a mask in the early days of the pandemic and taunted for his political views. Also on the receiving end of alleged workplace sabotage, one of Seyfried’s co-workers called the company’s ethics helpline and reported she and Seyfried were being bullied. But no action was taken.
In December 2021, Kroger Co. announced elimination of some COVID-19 benefits for unvaccinated employees. The company told employees that it will no longer provide two weeks of paid emergency leave for unvaccinated employees who contract COVID-19, unless local jurisdictions require otherwise. Kroger will also add a $50 monthly surcharge to company health plans for unvaccinated managers and other nonunion employees.
A 2022 Economic Roundtable survey of 10,000 workers in Colorado, Southern California, Washington found that workers' wages have declined over the last several years while over the same period executive pay has increased. The survey found that over 75% of workers experience food insecurity, over 66% struggle to meet basic needs and 14% experience homelessness, while CEO Rodney McMullen
William Rodney McMullen (born 1961) is an American businessman who has been the CEO of Kroger, the third-largest general retailer in the US, since January 1, 2014.
Early life
McMullen was born in Pineville, Kentucky on his family-owned farm, and ...
made over $22 million in 2020, compared to $12 million for the year 2018. According to Peter Dreier
Peter Dreier is an American urban policy analyst, author, Modern liberalism in the United States, liberal commentator and college political science professor. He is the Dr. E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics at Occidental College in Lo ...
, who participated in the project: "There are workers sleeping in RVs or couch surfing or living in parks somewhere. Americans go to their local supermarket every week and smile at the person cashing them out, not aware that the person they're talking to is going to sleep in a car after they clock out." About 2/3rds of Kroger employees are part-time workers, whose schedules often change making it difficult to take a second job.
References
Further reading
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Videos
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External links
Corporate website
Website for Kroger-branded stores
{{Authority control
1883 establishments in Ohio
American companies established in 1883
Companies based in Cincinnati
Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Retail companies established in 1883
Supermarkets of the United States