The Penn Fruit Company was a regional grocery chain in the Philadelphia and Baltimore areas that operated from 1927 until 1978. During the firm's history it was regarded as one of the most innovative American supermarket chains. However, the company's innovations often were copied by its bigger rivals who eventually succeeded in causing the chain's demise.
[Philadelphia Historical Commission]
Nomination of Historic Building for 5129-5135 Frankford Avenue
March 28, 2016.
History
![1958 - Penn Fruit Supermarket - Allentown PA](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/1958_-_Penn_Fruit_Supermarket_-_Allentown_PA.jpg)
The company was founded in 1927 by three
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
merchants—Morris Kaplan, Isaac Kaplan, and Samuel Cooke—as a produce store at 52nd and Market streets in Philadelphia. The store used low prices and heavy promotions to drive sales. The store was so successful that it was soon doing $10,000 a week in sales. The success of that initial store attracted John McClatchy, a local builder, to commission the young company to build a produce and seafood store in what would be Philadelphia's first shopping center.
By the early 1930s the company had grown to six stores, and although it did not want to add a full line of groceries to its fare, competition from established chains like
Acme
Acme is Ancient Greek (ακμή; English transliteration: ''akmē'') for "the peak", "zenith" or "prime". It may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Acme'' (album), an album by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
* Acme and Septimius, a fictional ...
and
A&P forced it into the grocery business. However, unlike the bigger chains, the company was so successful that it could easily transition its chain from smaller stores to larger supermarkets. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Penn Fruit expanded its older stores and added new ones throughout greater Philadelphia and New Jersey. It eventually added fresh meat departments to its stores and became one of the first chains to sell floral items. Because of its discount format and clean, high-volume self-service stores, the company was very popular in and around its core Philadelphia/New Jersey market.
After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
and throughout the 1950s, the company expanded its territory, opening stores in both New York and
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
. However, the company was less than successful with these stores, partly because of their geographic distance from Philadelphia. Stores built in the 1950s had a distinctive design, topped by a wide sweeping arch roof. Some of these buildings are still in use today. In 2016, the former Penn Fruit store on
Frankford Avenue, one of the last with an intact arch design, was recommended and approved for city landmark status.
In the 1960s, the company diversified, establishing chains of garden stores (Gaudio's), discount drug stores, and
convenience food
Convenience food, also called tertiary processed food, is food that is commercially prepared (often through processing) to optimise ease of consumption. Such food is usually ready to eat without further preparation. It may also be easily por ...
stores, buying a chain of Baltimore area supermarkets, as well as a toy chain called
Kiddie City. But, the company's greatest success was in its core business: supermarkets. In 1964, the company launched a chain of discount supermarkets called Dale's, and three years later, opened the first in a chain of Consumers Warehouse Markets; most, if not all, of Dale's and CWM stores were rebrandings of existing Penn Fruit stores. By 1971, the company had nearly 80 stores and sales of $370 million.
However, rivals such as A&P,
Food Fair
Food Fair, also known by its successor name Pantry Pride, was a large supermarket chain in the United States. It was founded by Samuel N. Friedland, who opened the first store (as Reading Giant Quality Price Cutter) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in ...
(later known as
Pantry Pride
Food Fair, also known by its successor name Pantry Pride, was a large supermarket chain in the United States. It was founded by Samuel N. Friedland, who opened the first store (as Reading Giant Quality Price Cutter) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania i ...
) and Acme were opening discount stores of their own, and in 1973, Acme's 173 Philadelphia-area stores launched a price war against Penn Fruit's 12 warehouse markets. This move set off a series of events that would lead to the latter's downfall. After nearly two years, the bottom fell out. Penn Fruit, unable to compete, filed
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 ...
and began selling off most of its non-supermarket holdings.
"Penn Fruit Bankruptcy Step Is Taken Under Chapter XI"
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', September 4, 1975 . It then later closed all but a handful of its supermarkets, including the last of its Baltimore division (now called Big Valu), which were sold to Food A Rama, a local Baltimore chain (now part of Shoppers Food & Pharmacy
Shoppers Food & Pharmacy, also known as Shoppers Food Warehouse, is a chain of 22 supermarkets located in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., metropolitan areas. Shoppers has fresh produce, Swift Angus beef, Smithfield natural pork, all-natural ...
, a Supervalu division) with the remaining 17 stores sold to Food Fair in 1975. Some of the former Penn Fruit stores becam
Shop 'n Bag
stores, an old 'chain' of owner-operated co-operative business model. Penn Fruit continued as a division of Pantry Pride until the latter filed bankruptcy two years later, with those units being absorbed by a variety of competitors.
References
External links
*James Cooke, ''How Penn Fruit Checked Out'', ''Philadelphia Magazine
''Philadelphia'' (also called "''Philadelphia'' magazine" or referred to by the nickname "Phillymag", once called ''Greater Philadelphia'') is a regional monthly magazine published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by the Lipson family of Philadelphia ...
'', July 1977, reprinte
here
*Shannon Teresa Garrison
''Penn Fruit and the Everyday Modern''
University of Pennsylvania Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, 2013
{{Supermarkets of the United States
Companies based in Philadelphia
American companies established in 1927
Retail companies established in 1927
Retail companies disestablished in 1978
Defunct supermarkets of the United States