Red Food Stores, Inc. (or simply Red Food) was a supermarket chain company headquartered in

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, ...

. It operated stores mostly in northwest

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, northeast

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, and southeast

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 ...

. Around 55 stores were operated in the same three states. Ahold to Buy U.S. Chain
''

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'', February 22, 1994 According to

The Chattanoogan ''The Chattanoogan'' and its website Chattanoogan.com is an online media outlet that concentrates on news from Chattanooga, Tennessee. It is published by John Wilson, previously a staff writer for the ''Chattanooga Free Press The ''Chattanooga ...

, Red Food was a longtime icon in Chattanooga history.

History

Red Food was started in 1908 by Frank McDonald. During

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 ...

, for the first time, Red Food sold turkeys for forty-five cents per pound to customers for

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. They also told customers to "invite a soldier and serve turkey this Thanksgiving." In 1979, Promodès, a food distribution firm based in

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, made a bid to buy Red Food Stores, Inc. for $23 million. By 1980, the acquisition was completed for a total of $36 million. The Red Food purchase gave Promodès 23 supermarkets centered primarily in southern Tennessee, plus additional stores in Georgia and Alabama. In order to finance Promodès' expansion, which would invest more than Ffr 2 billion between 1979 and 1984, the company went public in 1979. In April 1989, Red Food Store's purchase of seven supermarkets in its hometown owned by Kroger Co. was halted at virtually the 11th hour by the

Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...

, which decided the merger would substantially hamper competition in the market. The FTC action came unexpectedly. A month later, the FTC issued a complaint, challenging Red Food Stores' $6.5 million acquisition of all seven Kroger Co. grocery stores in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The commission lodged the complaint after a Federal appeals court rejected its request for an injunction blocking the transaction. In 1994, Red Food Stores, Inc. was bought by

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 ...

for $129 million, while Red Food stores were changed into Ahold's BI-LO stores in 1995. In July 2015,

Southeastern Grocers Southeastern Grocers (formerly Bi-Lo Holdings) is a supermarket portfolio headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. The portfolio was created by Lone Star Funds in September 2013 as the new parent company for Harveys, Winn-Dixie, and Fresco y M� ...

, the current owner of BI-LO, announced the sale of its 21 BI-LO stores in the Chattanooga market and eight stores in Northern

to K-VA-T Food Stores, which would rebrand the stores under its Food City banner. This sale ended BI-LO's presence in the Tennessee market.

Logos

The first logo used by Red Food Stores, Inc. was similar to the second one (as seen in this article), but with a rooster in the middle of it. The last logo used was plain red with little or no curves around the inside and outside of the letters. It was introduced a year before Ahold bought the company.

References

{{Supermarkets of the United States Retail companies established in 1908 Defunct supermarkets of the United States 1908 establishments in Tennessee