Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | Supermarket |
Founded | 1927 |
Defunct | December 2009 |
Fate | Absorbed into Metro Inc. |
Headquarters | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
Products | Master Choice products; Dairy, frozen foods, grocery, general merchandise (non-food), meat/deli, pharmacy, produce, snacks |
Parent | The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (1927–2005) Metro Inc. (2005–2009) |
Website | www.metro.ca |
A&P Canada Company was a Canadian supermarket company that operated from 1927 until 2009, when its stores were rebranded under the Metro name by Metro Inc.
In 1927, A&P opened its first stores in Canada. By 1929, A&P was present in 200 communities in Ontario and Quebec. [1]
A&P Canada left the Quebec market in 1984, and in 1985 acquired Dominion Stores in Ontario. It acquired Steinberg's Ontario grocery store chains Miracle Food Mart and Ultra Food&Drug in 1990 when the company divested them under new management (Miracle Mart rebranded by 1994 and Ultra by 2008). [1]
In 1999, it acquired the Barn Markets, based in Hamilton, Ontario, and opened its first discount grocery store, Food Basics.
In 2005, A&P Canada Co. operated 135 stores under the banners of: A&P, Dominion and Ultra Food & Drug, in addition to The Barn Markets and Food Basics. It employed over 34,000 employees in Ontario. [1]
On July 19, 2005, Metro Inc. announced that it had reached an agreement with The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, Inc. and its subsidiary, A&P Luxembourg S.à.r.l., to acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of A&P Canada, for an acquisition price of $1.7 billion, consisting of $1.2 billion in cash and $500 million in the form of treasury shares of Metro. The sale was completed on August 15, 2005.
On August 7, 2008, Metro announced it would invest $200 million consolidating the company's conventional food stores under the Metro banner. Over a period of 15 months, all Dominion, A&P, Loeb, The Barn and Ultra banners were converted to the Metro name. Food Basics stores were not directly affected because they compete in the discount food segment, [2] but did see A&P's Master Choice store brand replaced with Metro's Selection and Irresistibles brands.
Loeb was a Canadian supermarket chain. Founded in Ottawa, Ontario, Loeb expanded across Canada, and into parts of the United States. The company was acquired by the Quebec-based supermarket chain Metro in 1999, and its stores were converted to the Metro brand in 2008.
Metro Inc. is a Canadian food retailer operating in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. The company is based in Montreal, Quebec, with head office at 11011 Boulevard Maurice-Duplessis. Metro is the third largest grocer in Canada, after Loblaw Companies Limited and Sobeys.
Loblaw Companies Limited is a Canadian retailer encompassing corporate and franchise supermarkets operating under 22 regional and market-segment banners, as well as pharmacies, banking and apparel. Loblaw operates a private label program that includes grocery and household items, clothing, baby products, pharmaceuticals, cellular phones, general merchandise and financial services. Loblaw is the largest Canadian food retailer, and its brands include President's Choice, No Name and Joe Fresh. It is controlled by George Weston Limited, a holding company controlled by the Weston family; Galen G. Weston, is the chair of the Loblaw board of directors, as well as chair of the board of directors and CEO of Canada-based holding company George Weston.
Sobeys Inc. is a national supermarket chain in Canada with over 1,500 stores operating under a variety of banners. Headquartered in Stellarton, Nova Scotia, it operates stores in all ten provinces and accumulated sales of more than C$25.1 billion in the fiscal 2019 operating year. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Empire Company Limited, a Canadian business conglomerate.
Dominion was a national chain of supermarkets in Canada, which was known as the Dominion of Canada when the chain was founded. The chain was founded in 1919 in Ontario and was later acquired by the Argus Corporation. It was later sold to The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P), which restricted the chain to the Greater Toronto Area. Stores outside Ontario were converted to the A&P banner or sold to third parties. A&P's Canadian division was later acquired by Metro Inc., which rebranded the remaining Dominion stores to its namesake banner in 2008.
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P, was an American chain of grocery stores that operated from 1859–2015. From 1915 through 1975, A&P was the largest grocery retailer in the United States.
Food Basics Ltd. is a Canadian supermarket chain owned by Metro Inc. The company operates 142 stores throughout Ontario.
Miracle Mart was a chain of discount department stores with locations in Ontario and Quebec, Canada based in Saint-Laurent, Quebec. The chain was renamed to simply M in the mid-1980s.
Steinberg's was a large family-owned Canadian grocery store chain that mainly operated in the province of Quebec and later Ontario. In addition to its flagship supermarket chain, the company operated several subsidiaries across the country. The company went bankrupt in 1992, three years after being sold to private interests, after 75 years in business.
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Lucky Stores is an American supermarket chain founded in San Leandro, California, in 1935. Lucky is currently operated by Albertsons in Utah and Save Mart Supermarkets in Northern California.
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Super C is a Quebecois discount supermarket chain with 101 stores in Quebec. The stores average 4,103 square metres (44,164 sq ft) in size. Super C offers 8,000 products including some 1,200 products from the Super C private label brand.
Ultra Food & Drug was a supermarket and drug store chain in Ontario, Canada from the 1980s to 2008.
Miracle Food Mart was a supermarket chain in Ontario, Canada, owned by Steinberg's, a Quebec-based retailer in the 1970s and 1980s.
Food Basics was a no-frills discount supermarket chain owned and operated by The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company in the northeastern United States.
Safeway is a Canadian supermarket chain of 135 full service supermarket stores mostly operating in the western provinces in Canada. It was established in 1929 as a subsidiary of the American Safeway Inc., before being sold in 2013 to Canada's second-largest supermarket chain, Sobeys, a division of the conglomerate Empire Company. Independent since 2013 from the American company it continues to use the same Safeway name and logo as of May 2023.