Schaffer Stores Company was a small grocery

chain store A chain store or retail chain is a retail outlet in which several locations share a brand, central management and standardized business practices. They have come to dominate the retail and dining markets and many service categories, in many pa ...

based in

Schenectady, New York Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Y ...

. The business gained valuable experience by running a self-service grocery store beginning in 1929. Schaffer's first supermarket, called Empire Market, opened in 1933.

Foundation, expansion

The business was founded by Henry Schaffer (1890 '' - '' December 16, 1982). A native of

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

who came to Schenectady in his youth, he lived in Schenectady at the time of his death from

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...

. Schaffer formed Schaffer Stores Company in 1907.''Henry Schaffer Is Dead at 92; Founded Supermarket Chain'',

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 ...

, December 17, 1982. He operated 31 stores by 1922. In 25 years the firm grew to include 185 stores in the

Hudson Valley The Hudson Valley (also known as the Hudson River Valley) comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York. The region stretches from the Capital District including Albany and Troy south to ...

, Mohawk Valley, and western

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Buy out

The chain was acquired by

Grand Union (supermarket) Grand Union Supermarkets, later known as Grand Union Family Markets and often referred to simply as Grand Union, is an American chain of grocery stores that does business in upstate New York and Vermont, and used to do business throughout most of ...

in June 1958 for approximately $8 million. Grand Union, based in East Paterson, New Jersey, operated 472 supermarkets. At the time, Schaffer ran 41 grocery stores, the majority of which were supermarkets.''Trade Regulation Reporter'' (Volume 3), Commerce Clearing House, 1961.

References

{{Supermarkets of the United States Schenectady, New York History of New York (state) Defunct supermarkets of the United States