Sweetbay Supermarket

Last updated

Sweetbay Supermarket
FormerlyBig Barn
Company typeSubsidiary
Industry Retail
Founded1947;77 years ago (1947)
DefunctOctober 8, 2013;11 years ago (2013-10-08)
FateAcquired by BI-LO
Headquarters Tampa, Florida, U.S.
Products Grocery
Parent Aldi

Sweetbay Supermarket was a chain of American supermarkets located in Florida. The first Sweetbay Supermarket to open was in Seminole, Florida, in November 2004. The company's headquarters was located near Tampa, in Hillsborough County, Florida. [1] It was a part of the Belgian Delhaize Group. In May 2013, the chain was purchased by BI-LO. On October 8, 2013, BI-LO announced it was retiring the Sweetbay name and all remaining locations would be re-branded as Winn-Dixie. [2]

Contents

History

Kash n' Karry

Former Kash n' Karry store in Bradenton, Florida KashNKarry Bradenton.jpg
Former Kash n' Karry store in Bradenton, Florida

Salvatore Greco, an Italian immigrant, sold fruits and vegetables in the streets of Tampa beginning in 1914. In 1922, he and his wife Giuseppina opened a storefront at their home. The Greco family built a proper store in 1947 under the name Big Barn in Plant City, Florida. [3] [4]

The business expanded and they had opened nine stores by 1960 under the name Tampa Wholesale. In 1962, the name changed again to Kash n' Karry, based on the cash and carry program of World War II. People would bring in their "cash" and "carry" out their own groceries. By 1970, the chain had grown to 48 stores. By 1973, it expanded into 11 counties, and in 1976, a distribution center was opened in Tampa. [3] [4]

Kash n' Karry was acquired by Lucky Stores of California in 1979. [5] After American Stores acquired Lucky in 1988, it sold Kash n' Karry to leveraged buyout firm Gibbons, Green, and van Amerongen. [6] [7] As the buyout was being completed, Kash n' Karry bought 24 Florida Choice supermarkets from Kroger, who was closing the chain. [8] When Gibbons, Green and van Amerongen dissolved in 1989, [9] Leonard Green & Partners became the controlling stockholder. [10] By 1989 the supermarket had 97 locations, more than 8,200 employees, and annual sales exceeding $900 million. [4]

In 1991, Kash n' Karry began modernizing its stores. It also introduced its Kash n' Karry and Kash Saver private labels. [11] At the end of the year, Leonard Green invested $30 million to take full control of the company. [12] The company filed for bankruptcy in November 1994 and emerged the next month after restructuring its debt. [13] [14]

Kash n' Karry held an IPO in 1995. [15] In December 1996, Kash n' Karry was acquired by Food Lion, the American division of Delhaize Group. [16] In July 1999, Food Lion also acquired Hannaford and a new holding company was created, making Kash n' Karry a wholly-owned subsidiary of Delhaize America. [17]

In 2002, Kash n' Karry pulled out of the competitive Orlando market with only two stores remaining in Clermont, 25 miles west of Orlando. [18] In January 2004, it was announced that 34 Kash n' Karry locations would close in order to focus on the West Coast of Florida and free up resources to open and remodel 20 stores. [19] Two of the chain's three stores in Gainesville, Florida were closed during this time. [20]

Sweetbay

Also in January 2004, Kash n' Karry announced the creation and rollout of a new supermarket concept called Sweetbay Supermarket in its core markets on the West Coast of Florida. [21] The first of the new Sweetbay Supermarkets opened in Seminole, Florida, on November 6, 2004, and in Fort Myers in December 2004. [22] By March 2007, the company announced its intention to rebrand all Kash n' Karry locations as Sweetbay Supermarkets. [23]

Sweetbay was modeled after Delhaize's Hannaford brand, incorporating store design, logo and branding elements, purchasing systems, and pricing strategy from its northeastern sister company. [21] [24] Additionally, Sweetbay stocked Hannaford-branded products as its generic store brand [25] until 2011, when all Delhaize America stores began offering the Healthy Accents brand (for health & beauty items), the Home 360 brand (for home products) and the My Essentials brand (for food products). [26]

On August 29, 2007, the last Kash n' Karry store in Crystal River, Florida, closed, marking the end of the Kash n' Karry brand and the full conversion to Sweetbay Supermarket. [27] [28] The transition to Sweetbay proved to be successful in the first year, however, sales growth plateaued after. [25]

In March 2008, Hannaford Supermarkets announced that a data breach had exposed 4.2 million credit and debit cards to fraudulent misuse. The intrusion also affected Sweetbay stores and certain independently owned retail locations in the Northeast that carried Hannaford products. The company was aware of about 1,800 cases of fraud related to the data intrusion. [29] [30] In August, Sweetbay became the official supermarket of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball club. [31]

In January 2013, Sweetbay announced that 33 stores would close, leaving the chain with 72 locations. The closings were attributed to competition from regional grocery chain Publix and national chain Walmart. [32] [33] The closings included the two remaining stores in Clermont, ending the company's presence in the Orlando market. [34]

In May 2013, Sweetbay and its sister supermarket chains Harveys and Reid's were sold to BI-LO LLC for $265 million. Included in the transaction were 72 Sweetbay stores and the leases to 10 Sweetbay locations that closed in January 2013. [35]

On October 8, 2013, BI-LO announced it would retire the Sweetbay brand, and rename all Sweetbay locations to Winn-Dixie. [36] The following month, it was announced that the Tampa headquarters would permanently close and 346 employees were laid off. [37]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kroger</span> American retail company

The Kroger Company, or simply Kroger, is an American retail company that operates supermarkets and multi-department stores throughout the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aldi</span> German multinational discount supermarket chain

Aldi is the common company brand name of two German multinational family-owned discount supermarket chains operating over 12,000 stores in 18 countries. The chain was founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946, when they took over their mother's store in Essen. The business was split into two separate groups in 1960, that later became Aldi Nord, headquartered in Essen, and Aldi Süd, headquartered in neighbouring Mülheim.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Winn-Dixie</span> American supermarket chain

Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc., styled as Winn✓Dixie, is an American supermarket chain headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. It operates more than 546 stores in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. The company has had its present name since 1955 and can trace its roots back to 1925.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Publix</span> American supermarket chain in the southeastern United States

Publix Super Markets, Inc., doing business as Publix, is an employee-owned American supermarket chain headquartered in Lakeland, Florida. Founded in 1930 by George W. Jenkins, Publix is a private corporation that is wholly owned by present and past employees and members of the Jenkins family. Publix operates throughout the Southeastern United States, with locations in Florida (867), Georgia (212), Alabama (90), South Carolina (69), Tennessee (58), North Carolina (54), Virginia (20), and Kentucky (1). Kentucky is the most recent addition to the Publix footprint, with the company's first store in that state having opened on January 10, 2024, in Louisville.

Delhaize Group SA was a Belgian multinational retail company headquartered in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, Brussels, Belgium, and operated in seven countries and on three continents. The principal activity of Delhaize Group was the operation of food supermarkets. On 24 June 2015, Delhaize reached an agreement with Ahold to merge and form a new parent/holding company headquartered in the Netherlands: Ahold Delhaize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Food Lion</span> American regional supermarket chain owned by Ahold Delhaize

Food Lion is an American regional supermarket chain headquartered in Salisbury, North Carolina, that operates over 1,000 supermarkets in 10 states:. The chain employs over 82,000 people. It was founded in 1957 as Food Town, a single grocery store in Salisbury. It later expanded to many locations across North Carolina. It was independently operated until it was acquired by the Belgium-based conglomerate Delhaize Group in 1974. In 1983, the company changed its name and branding to Food Lion to allow it to expand into regions where Food Town was already in use by unrelated stores. Following further mergers and acquisitions, Food Lion, LLC is currently owned by Ahold Delhaize. The mascot’s name has been Leo the Food Lion since January 17, 1997.

SaveRite was a U.S. chain of discount grocery stores owned by Winn-Dixie. The store offered a smaller selection and less customer support than most grocery stores.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harveys Supermarkets</span> American supermarket chain owned by Aldi Süd

J.M. Harvey Co., LLC, under the trade name Harveys Supermarkets, is an American supermarket chain with stores in Georgia and Florida. The majority of the Harveys stores are between 18,000 and 35,000 square feet (3,300 m2).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stop & Shop</span> American regional supermarket chain

The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company, known as Stop & Shop, is an American regional chain of supermarkets located in the northeastern United States. From its beginnings in 1892 as a small grocery store, it has grown to include 406 stores chain-wide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big Y</span> US supermarket chain in Massachusetts and Connecticut

Big Y Foods, Inc. is an American, family-owned supermarket chain located in Massachusetts and Connecticut. It operates under the trade names "Big Y World Class Market" or "Big Y Supermarket". The company is headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts and is currently run by cousins Charles and Michael D'Amour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucky Stores</span> Two distinct American supermarket chains

Lucky Stores are a pair of American supermarket chains plus a defunct historical chain. The original chain was founded in San Leandro, California, that operated from 1935 until 1999. The Lucky brand was revived in 2006 and 2007 and is now operated as two separate and distinct chains by Albertsons in Utah as Lucky and Save Mart Supermarkets in Northern California as Lucky California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bottom Dollar Food</span> Defunct American soft-discount grocery chain

Bottom Dollar Food is a defunct American soft-discount grocery chain. It was a subsidiary of Delhaize America, the U.S. division of international food retailer Delhaize Group. Its headquarters was in Salisbury, North Carolina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Stores</span> American grocery store holding company

American Stores Company was an American public corporation and a holding company which ran chains of supermarkets and drugstores in the United States from 1917 through 1998. The company was incorporated in 1917 when The Acme Tea Company merged with four small Philadelphia-area grocery stores (Childs, George Dunlap, Bell Company, and A House That Quality Built) to form American Stores. In the following eight decades, the company would expand to 1,575 food and drugstores in 38 states with $20 billion in annual sales in 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BI-LO (United States)</span> American supermarket chain owned by Southeastern Grocers

BI-LO was an American supermarket chain owned by Southeastern Grocers, headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. At the time of the banner’s elimination, supermarkets under the BI-LO brand were operated in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victory Supermarkets</span> Defunct supermarket chain in New England, USA

Victory Super Markets was a grocery store chain based in Leominster, Massachusetts that included 20 stores across Massachusetts and New Hampshire. It was founded in 1923 by two DiGeronimo brothers and was originally named after the American war effort in World War I. It acquired 4 Shaw's locations in the Boston Metro Area since around 1999 and 2000. The family-run company was sold to Hannaford Brothers Company in 2004 after a successful 81 year stretch. When it was sold, the company employed over 2,600 workers and had an annual revenue of $385 million. In 2005, the website began redirecting people to the Hannaford website.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hannaford Brothers Company</span> American supermarket chain

Hannaford is an American supermarket chain based in Scarborough, Maine. Founded in Portland, Maine, in 1883, Hannaford operates stores in New England and New York. The chain is part of the Ahold Delhaize group based in the Netherlands, and is a sister company to formerly competing New England supermarket chain Stop & Shop.

Reid's was an 11-store chain located in various rural South Carolina communities, specifically Barnwell, Orangeburg, Langley, New Ellenton, Batesburg, Walterboro, St. George, Aiken, Saluda, Cayce, and Hampton. Most of these stores were all former Food Lion stores and carried Food Lion branded goods and used the Food Lion infrastructure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southeastern Grocers</span> American supermarket company

Southeastern Grocers is an American 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 Más.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ahold Delhaize</span> Dutch multinational retail and wholesaling company

Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize N.V., commonly known as Ahold Delhaize, is a Dutch-Belgian multinational retail and wholesale holding company. Its name comes from the 2016 merger of two companies: Ahold (Dutch) and Delhaize Group (Belgian), which both have origins in the 1800s. Its business format includes supermarkets, convenience stores, hypermarkets, online grocery, online non-food, drugstores, and liquor stores. Its 16 local brands employ 402,000 people at 7,716 stores across nine countries. The United States is where two-thirds of the holding company's revenue is generated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucky's Market</span> Colorado supermarket

Lucky's Market is a brand of supermarkets that are being used by two independent and unrelated regional supermarket chains, LM Acquisition Co. LLC in Colorado and Lucky's Market Ohio in Ohio.

References

  1. ↑ "Contacts". Delhaize Group . Archived from the original on May 22, 2012. Retrieved May 17, 2012.
  2. ↑ "Sweetbay grocery chain to become Winn-Dixie stores". Tampa Bay Times. October 9, 2013. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  3. 1 2 "About Us". Kash n' Kerry. Archived from the original on April 9, 2003. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 Prevor, Jim (August 30, 2007). "Kash n' Karry Is Now 100% Sweetbay". Jim Prevor's Perishable Pundit. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  5. ↑ "Kash n' Karry suffers recent troubles". Tampa Bay Times. August 10, 1996. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  6. ↑ Adelson, Andrea (August 13, 1988). "COMPANY NEWS Gibbons, Green to Buy Lucky's Florida Unit". The New York Times .
  7. ↑ Archives, L. A. Times (August 13, 1988). "Deals Set for Portion of Lucky Stores". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  8. ↑ Denise L. Smith (August 24, 1988). "KASH N' KARRY BUYS MARKETS FROM KROGER". Orlando Sentinel.
  9. ↑ "Gibbons, Green Separation". The New York Times. May 5, 1989. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  10. ↑ Tosh, Mark (March 28, 1994). "KASH N' KARRY OWNERSHIP MAY CHANGE". www.supermarketnews.com. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  11. ↑ Linsen, Mary Ann (September 1, 1991). "Price isn't everything at Kash n' Karry". Progressive Grocer. www.thefreelibrary.com. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  12. ↑ Albright, Mark (November 28, 1991). "Control of Kash n' Karry turned over to investors". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  13. ↑ "Kash-n-Karry files for Chapter 11". Orlando Sentinel. November 19, 1994.
  14. ↑ Zwiebach, Elliot (November 14, 1994). "PREPACKAGED CHAPTER 11 FILED BY KASH N' KARRY". www.supermarketnews.com. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  15. ↑ "KASH N' KARRY RESTRUCTURE COMPLETE". www.supermarketnews.com. January 2, 1995. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  16. ↑ "FOOD LION AGREES TO BUY KASH N' KARRY". The New York Times. November 1, 1996. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  17. ↑ Canedy, Dana (August 19, 1999). "Food Lion to Acquire Hannaford Brothers". The New York Times. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  18. ↑ Michael Scott Davidson (January 17, 2013). "Sweetbay Supermarket closings include two Clermont locations". Orlando Sentinel.
  19. ↑ "Kash n' Karry to Restructure; Close 34 Stores". Progressive Grocer. January 15, 2004. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  20. ↑ Chandler, Doris (January 15, 2004). "Kash n' Karry closing stores in Gainesville". Gainesville Sun. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  21. 1 2 Boss, Donna (March 15, 2004). "KASH N' KARRY TO REBANNER AS SWEETBAY SUPERMARKETS". www.supermarketnews.com. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  22. ↑ Bond, Sharon L. (December 28, 2004). "Sweetbay shelves, aisles full". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  23. ↑ DeFilipp, Michelle (March 23, 2007). "Kash n' Karry brand retiring after 50 years". Ocala Star Banner. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  24. ↑ Orgel, David (November 15, 2004). "WHY SWEETBAY IS MORE THAN JUST HANNAFORD SOUTHEAST". www.supermarketnews.com. Retrieved September 8, 2024.
  25. 1 2 Springer, Jon (September 10, 2007). "Sweet Success". www.supermarketnews.com. Retrieved September 8, 2024.
  26. ↑ "Hannaford Heads to Home 360". Supermarket News. October 29, 2010. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  27. ↑ Prevor, Jim (August 30, 2007). "Kash n' Karry Is Now 100% Sweetbay". Jim Prevor's Perishable Pundit. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
  28. ↑ "Talk of the bay: Last remaining Kash n' Karry to check out". St. Petersburg Times. August 28, 2007. Archived from the original on September 8, 2009. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  29. ↑ Garry, Michael (August 11, 2008). "Filling the Breach". Supermarket News. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  30. ↑ "Credit Card Security". Sweetbay Supermarket. Archived from the original on September 5, 2008.
  31. ↑ "Sweetbay first grocer to partner with Tampa Bay Rays". St. Petersburg Times. August 29, 2008. Archived from the original on December 9, 2008.
  32. ↑ Trigaux, Robert (January 17, 2013). "Sweetbay store closings driven by Publix, Wal-Mart pressure, sagging parent company performance". Tampa Bay Times. Archived from the original on January 18, 2013. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  33. ↑ Thurston, Susan (January 18, 2013). "CRUNCHED UP". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved September 8, 2024.
  34. ↑ Michael Scott Davidson (January 17, 2013). "Sweetbay Supermarket closings include two Clermont locations". Orlando Sentinel.
  35. ↑ Trigaux, Robert (May 28, 2013). "Grocery wars: Tampa's Sweetbay sold to Winn-Dixie parent". Tampa Bay Times . Retrieved June 24, 2019.
  36. ↑ "Sweetbay grocery chain to become Winn-Dixie stores". Tampa Bay Times . St. Petersburg, FL. October 8, 2013. Retrieved October 9, 2013.
  37. ↑ Harrington, Jeff (November 13, 2013). "Sweetbay to lay off 346 as it closes its Tampa headquarters and distribution center". Tampa Bay Times .
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.