Quality Markets was an American supermarket chain, with stores in

Western New York Western New York (WNY) is the westernmost region of the U.S. state of New York. The eastern boundary of the region is not consistently defined by state agencies or those who call themselves "Western New Yorkers". Almost all sources agree WNY i ...

and northwestern

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. It was a subsidiary of Penn Traffic, but is now a division of

Tops Markets LLC Tops Friendly Markets is an American supermarket chain based in Amherst, New York, that operates stores in Upstate New York, Vermont, and Northern Pennsylvania. The chain operates full-scale supermarkets. Tops is a subsidiary of Northeast Groc ...

History

The first Quality Markets store opened in Jamestown, New York in 1913, and spread into Pennsylvania by the 1930s. They became a subsidiary of Penn Traffic in 1979. They opened their first stores in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

in 1993. According to their website, they were the first chain store in Western New York to use

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...

scanners at the checkout. After the parent company's third bankruptcy and sale to Tops Markets LLC, Quality stores were converted to Tops by the end of August 2010, along with sister stores P&C and BiLo/Riverside.

Litigation

For much of the mid-to-late 1990s, Quality Markets was embroiled in antitrust litigation with its eventual successor, Tops Markets. The lawsuit against Quality was based on allegations that they conspired with a local developer to prevent Tops from entering the local Jamestown market.TOPS MARKETS INC v. QUALITY MARKETS INC 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals - FindLaw.com
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References

Retail companies established in 1913 Retail companies disestablished in 2010 Companies based in Buffalo, New York Defunct supermarkets of the United States Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1999 Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2003 Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009 1913 establishments in New York (state) 2010 disestablishments in New York (state) {{Food-company-stub