A supermarket is a self-service shop offering a wide variety of food, beverages and household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earlier grocery stores, but is smaller and more limited in the range of merchandise than a hypermarket or big-box market. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is synonymous with supermarket, and is not used to refer to other types of stores that sell groceries.
A grocery store (AE), grocery shop (BE) or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, and is not used to refer to other types of stores that sell groceries. In the UK, shops that sell food are distinguished as grocers or grocery shops.
Piggly Wiggly is an American supermarket chain operating in the American Southern and Midwestern regions run by Piggly Wiggly, LLC, an affiliate of C&S Wholesale Grocers. Its first outlet opened in 1916 in Memphis, Tennessee, and is notable for having been the first true self-service grocery store, and the originator of various familiar supermarket features such as checkout stands, individual item price marking and shopping carts. The current company headquarters is in Keene, New Hampshire. A total of 499 independently owned Piggly Wiggly stores currently operate across 18 states, primarily in smaller cities and towns.
Weis Markets, Inc. is a Mid-Atlantic food retailer headquartered in Sunbury, Pennsylvania. It currently operates 199 stores with over 23,000 employees in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, West Virginia, Virginia, and Delaware.
Wakefern Food Corporation is an American company that was founded in 1946 and is based in Keasbey, New Jersey. It is the largest retailers' cooperative group of supermarkets and the fourth-largest cooperative of any kind in the United States. Wakefern was the largest private employer in New Jersey in 2018, with 40,200 employees. As of 2021, Wakefern has fifty member companies who own and operate 362 supermarkets, under the brands of ShopRite, Price Rite Marketplace, The Fresh Grocer, Dearborn Market, Gourmet Garage, and Fairway Market in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Virginia. As of September 2022, Wakefern owned 365 supermarkets.
IGA, Inc., is an American chain of grocery stores that operates in more than 41 countries. Unlike the chain store business model, IGA operates as a franchise through stores that are owned separately from the brand. Many of these stores operate in small-town markets and belong to families that manage them. It was founded in the United States as the Independent Grocers Alliance in 1926. The headquarters is in Chicago, Illinois.
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.
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 Grocery, which also owns the Price Chopper and Market 32 supermarkets based in Schenectady, New York. As of August 2022, the company operated 149 stores and 5 gas station/convenience stores. The chain formerly operated stores in Ohio and Massachusetts.
A warehouse store or warehouse supermarket is a food and grocery retailer that operates stores geared toward offering deeper discounted prices than a traditional supermarket. These stores offer a no-frills experience and warehouse shelving stocked well with merchandise intended to move at higher volumes. Unlike warehouse clubs, warehouse stores do not require a membership or membership fees. Warehouse stores can also offer a selection of merchandise sold in bulk. Typically, warehouse stores are laid out in a logical format; this leads customers in a certain way around the store to the checkout. For example, as one enters the store they are directed down an aisle of discounted products. From there the layout could then lead to the fresh produce department, followed by the deli and bakery departments at the back of the store. Often, certain customer service niceties, like the bagging of groceries, are not done by store employees; this helps reduce overall cost. Many warehouse stores are operated by traditional grocery chains both as a way to attract lower income, value conscious consumers and to maximize their buying power in order to lower costs at their mainstream stores.
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 the northeastern United States. It operated stores in other areas of the country including the midwestern and southeastern states, and internationally in the Caribbean and Canada. The company was founded and headquartered in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and moved to Brooklyn, New York in the early 20th century. Grand Union moved again to Elmwood Park, New Jersey and finally to Wayne, New Jersey before the company was forced into Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2001 and sold to C&S Wholesale Grocers.
Marsh Supermarkets was an American retail food chain headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, with a peak number of 86 stores in 2013 located throughout central Indiana and parts of western Ohio. Its eventual parent company was Sun Capital Partners, headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida.
FreshCo Ltd. is a Canadian chain of deep discount supermarkets owned by Sobeys. It was launched in March 2010. As of April 2019, there were 98 FreshCo stores.
Food 4 Less is the name of several grocery store chains, the largest of which is currently owned by Kroger. It is a no-frills grocery store where the customers bag their own groceries at the checkout. Kroger operates Food 4 Less stores in the Chicago metropolitan area, the Fresno area, and Southern California. Kroger operates their stores as Foods Co in northern and central California, because they do not have the rights to the Food 4 Less name in those areas. Other states, such as Nevada, formerly contained Kroger-owned Food 4 Less stores.
C&S Wholesale Grocers is a national wholesale grocery supply company in the United States, based in Keene, New Hampshire. In 2021 it was the eighth-largest privately held company in the United States, as listed by Forbes. C&S owns the Piggly Wiggly grocery brand, which is independently franchised to store operators, the Grand Union supermarkets brand, as well as several private label brands, including Best Yet.
BI-LO was an American supermarket chain owned by Southeastern Grocers, headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. In the time of the banner’s elimination, supermarkets under the BI-LO brand were operated in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.
Met Foodmarkets, also referred to as Met Foods, is a group of independently owned and operated stores, which operates in the New York Metropolitan Area. Most of its stores are in the four boroughs of New York City outside Manhattan and carry a variety of products. Met Foods is a banner of Associated Supermarket Group (ASG). Met Foods has various locations throughout the New York and New Jersey area.
Harps Food Stores, Inc., based in Springdale, Arkansas, is a local chain of 114 supermarkets located across Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas. The company sells both groceries and sporting goods in some larger stores, with several locations also incorporating pharmacies and fuel centers. In addition to its flagship brand, the company also operates grocery stores under four banners: Food4Less, in southwest Missouri; CashSaver in Tulsa; 10Box Cost-Plus; and Warehouse Market in Tulsa. The company additionally operates a franchise of Ace Hardware in Charleston, Arkansas.
Best Market was a family-owned, regional supermarket chain with 30 stores in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. The company was headquartered in Bethpage, New York, and had been owned by the Raitses family since the company's first store opened in Lake Ronkonkoma, New York, in 1994.
