SuperValu, Inc. is an American retailing company. The corporation, headquartered in the Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, has been in business for nearly a century. It is the fifth-largest food retailing company in the United States (after Kroger and Albertsons), and ranks in the top 100 on the 2015 Fortune 500 list. Supermarket News ranked SuperValu #1 in the 2008 "Top Wholesalers for 2008".
On June 2, 2006, Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons, Inc. sold 1,124 of its stores to SuperValu. The sale was approved by the shareholders of both SuperValu and Albertsons on May 30, 2006. In January 2013, the company announced it was selling the Acme Markets, Shaw's, and Jewel-Osco chains and their remaining Albertsons stores to Cerberus Capital Management for $100 million in cash with Cerberus assuming $3.2 billion in existing debt. SuperValu would keep its Cub, Farm Fresh, Shoppers Food & Pharmacy, Shop ‘n Save and Hornbacher's brands as well as its wholesale supply operation while the Acme, Shaw's, Star Market, and Jewel-Osco stores were reunited with Albertsons. The deal closed March 21, 2013.
History
In 1870, Hugh G. Harrison provided the money for B.S. Bull and Company, a dry goods wholesaler serving Minneapolis. Though B.S. Bull and Company was short lived, its founders went on to create a similar company. In 1926, SuperValu's direct ancestor, Winston and Newell Company, was founded from the merger of Winston, Harper and Fisher and the Newell Company, two companies founded by B. S. Bull's backers.
Winston and Newell was a charter member of the Independent Grocers Alliance in 1928, but left IGA in 1942 in favor of forming a "virtual chain" of independently owned stores that operated under the SuperValu and U-Save banners. However, it still serves as a supplier to many IGA stores. This concept proved to be such a success that in 1952, the company changed its name to SuperValu Inc. The name was modified to SuperValu in 1992.
The company has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 1967, and was the first voluntary group to be listed there.
Acquisitions
In 1963, the company acquired the Food Marketing Corporation of Fort Wayne, Indiana, which traced its roots to the early 1800s, as Bursley & Company. The acquisition of Food Marketing brought SuperValu into the institutional market. George W. McKay, The President of Food Marketing, joined SuperValu as an Executive Vice President and later as President and Chief Executive Officer of SuperValu in 1970.
In 1971, the discount store chain ShopKo was acquired by SuperValu, Inc., and was spun off in 1991 to form a separate, publicly traded company. SuperValu retained a 46% interest in the new company, which Shopko later purchased in 1997.
In 1975, SuperValu acquired Hornbacher's (sale to Cerberus pending).
In 1980, the company acquired Minnesota-based Cub Foods, which operated five stores in the Twin Cities area. As of 2011, Cub is operating more than 73 stores in Minnesota and Illinois.
In the early 1990s, SuperValu started acquiring several chains such as Scott's Food & Pharmacy in 1991, Wetterau, Inc. and its holdings Shop 'n Save and Save-A-Lot in 1992, and bigg's in 1994. Scotts & Biggs have been divested. Biggs was sold to Remke Markets and Kroger bought Scotts. SuperValu acquired Richfood Holdings for $1.5 billion, adding a Mid-Atlantic distribution presence and stores including Farm Fresh Food & Pharmacy, Shoppers Food & Pharmacy, and Metro.
On January 23, 2006, SuperValu announced that it, along with CVS Corporation and a collection of investors led by Cerberus Group, agreed to acquire Albertsons, Inc. for $9.7 billion. The acquisition was completed on June 2, 2006.
SuperValu acquired over 2150 stores in the deal including:
- Acme (134 locations) (sold to Cerberus)
- Acme Express, Jewel Express, and Albertsons Express (107 fuel centers) (units were divested to various operators)
- Albertsons (564 locations) (sold to Cerberus)
- Bristol Farms (15 locations) (later sold off)
- Jewel and Jewel-Osco (198 locations sold to Cerberus)
- Lazy Acres Market (1 location) (later sold off)
- Max Foods (3 locations) (later rebranded Lucky)
- Osco Pharmacy and Sav-on Pharmacy (906 pharmacies) (Stand-alones sold to CVS)
- Save-A-Lot (2 locations franchised by Shaw's)
- Shaw's (188 locations) (sold to Cerberus)
- Star Market (20 locations) (7 re-branded Shaw's) (sold to Cerberus)
In July 2016, it was announced that SuperValu had entered into a purchase agreement with Ahold and Delhaize Group for 22 Food Lion locations in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia as part of the divestiture of stores to gain clearance from the Federal Trade Commission for the Ahold/Delhaize merger. The 22 stores were rebranded under the Shop ‘n Save retail banner.
Today
In 2012, SuperValu operates 2,505 food and food/drug combination stores, 878 in-store pharmacies, and 117 fuel centers and serves as primary distributor to an additional 2,200 stores.
SuperValu also supplies a network of independent retailers (often found in smaller cities) that sometimes use the SuperValu name. However, these stores are not owned by the company. SuperValu also franchises the Cub Foods and Save-A-Lot brands to independent retailers.
In 2009, former Walmart executive Craig Herkert took over for Jeff Noddle as CEO of SuperValu.
On January 6, 2011, SuperValu announced it would close 20 underperforming stores. On January 11, 2011, SuperValu reported a loss of $202 million for the quarter; revenue also fell 6% to $8.67 billion. Stock prices fell 12 percent to $7.52 per share.
The company operates on a strategy of effective and efficient food distribution, conducting its retail food operations through a total of 2,349 retail food stores that are supplied by 32 distribution centers.
In September 2011, SuperValu announced the sale of all but 27 of its fuel centers to several convenience store chains, including Tesoro, Holiday Stationstores, Couche-Tard (which operates Circle K Stores), and Stinker Stores. The company announced that it was seeking buyers for the remaining fuel centers as well.
On July 11, 2012, after the close of trading, SuperValu reported net sales of $10.6 billion and net earnings of $41 million for the first quarter of fiscal year 2013, compared to net sales of $11.1 billion and net earnings for $74 million for the year-earlier period. Those results sent SuperValu shares down some 45% after the start of trading on July 12, 2012, and hurt performance of other outstanding SuperValu debt, including its high yield bonds and CDS (credit default swap).
On July 30, 2012, Craig Herkert was let go as CEO of SuperValu, replaced with Wayne Sales. Sales is a former CEO of Canadian Tire.
On January 13, 2013, Sam Duncan, who had retired as CEO of Naperville, Illinois-based OfficeMax in 2011, was named CEO of SuperValu.
On February 3, 2016, Mark Gross was named CEO of SuperValu, replacing Sam Duncan.
In October 2016, SuperValu announced they are selling Save-A-Lot to Onex Corporation.
In April 2017, the company announced that it had entered into a $375 million merger agreement with Unified Grocers, based in Commerce, California, in which Unified Grocers would become a wholly owned subsidiary of SuperValu when the merger is completed. The deal is expected to be finalized in late summer 2017, with the merger process then taking about two years to implement.
Overview
As a supplier to IGA stores for over 80 years, SuperValu necessarily has formed close relationships with these family owned grocery businesses, some of which have had relationships with the corporation for over two or three generations. But Walmart's newly arrived grocery competition to these stores also affects SuperValu, Inc. In addition, SuperValu is selling its Shop 'n' Save stores in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania market as a result of being unable to compete with Walmart and fast-growing local chain Giant Eagle. Most will be sold to independent owners, and continue to operate under the Shop 'n' Save banner. SuperValu will continue to supply all area FoodLand, Save-A-Lot and the independent Shop 'n' Save locations of western Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia.
SuperValu enjoys economies of scale when dealing with the well-known national food firms like Kraft Foods, General Mills, Kellogg's, the beer manufacturers, meat suppliers, produce suppliers and dairy suppliers, as well as the health and beauty product suppliers, by purchasing in bulk and then distributing the goods by Direct Store Delivery from its distribution centers, which are located nationwide.
The ethnic foods market is an emerging sector and remains a challenge for this business, as well as the natural and organic foods sector, as there are no clear market leaders for the corporation to deal with in these sectors. It remains to be seen whether SuperValu's tradition of dealing with small grocery businesses can be extended to these emerging markets.
SuperValu brands include:
"Arctic Shores," "Baby Basics," "Carlita," "Culinary Circle," "Equaline," "Essential Everyday," "Farm Fresh," "Farm Stand," "Flavorite," "WholeCare Pet," "Homelife," "Java Delight," "Max Velocity," "NutriPlan," "Richfood," "Shoppers Value," "Stockman & Dakota," "Stone Ridge Creamery," "SuperChill," "SuperCrunch," and "Wild Harvest"
SuperValu also owns two third-party logistics firms, Advantage Logistics and Total Logistic Control. In 2005, SuperValu launched a specialty produce company, W. Newell & Company which is headquartered in Champaign, Illinois.
As of 2006, SuperValu has a leading market share position in several markets where it has operations. (Operations with a + denoted indicate operations SuperValu has divested.)
- First
- Philadelphia, PA-NJ (Acme) +
- Minneapolis-St.Paul, MN (Cub Foods)
- Fargo, ND (Hornbacher's)
- Chicago, IL (Jewel, Jewel-Osco) +
- Billings, MT (Albertsons)+
- Nampa/Boise, ID (Albertsons)+
- Las Vegas, NV (Albertsons)+
- Orange County, CA (Albertsons)+
- Second
- Norfolk/Virginia Beach, VA (Farm Fresh Food & Pharmacy)
- Boston, MA-NH-ME (Shaw's and Star Market) +
- Spokane, WA (Albertsons)+
- St. Louis, MO (Shop 'n Save)
- Riverside-San Bernardino, CA (Albertsons)+
- San Diego, CA (Albertsons) +
- Ventura, CA (Albertsons)+
- Duluth, MN/Superior, WI (Cub Foods)
- Third
- Pittsburgh, PA (Shop 'n Save)+
- Seattle-Bellevue-Everett/Tacoma, WA (Albertsons) +
- Washington, D.C./Baltimore, MD (Shoppers)
- Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA (Albertsons) +
Chains
The company operates under multiple retail banners, or chains:
- County Market over 100 locations independently owned (Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin)
- Cub Foods 77 locations of which 31 are franchised (Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN and IL.)
- Farm Fresh Food & Pharmacy 46 locations (Norfolk/Virginia Beach and Richmond, VA, plus Elizabeth City, NC)
- Hornbacher's 6 locations (Fargo-Moorhead, ND/MN)
- Shop 'n Save 42 locations (St. Louis, MO, Southern IL and Springfield, IL) not to be confused with the Pittsburgh-area Shop 'n Save stores which are no longer owned by Supervalu
- Shoppers Food & Pharmacy 56 locations (Washington, D.C., Baltimore, MD and Northern VA)
- SuperValu Pharmacies 109 pharmacies (Nationwide)
- Rainbow Foods 4 locations (Minnesota)
SuperValu (Ireland) is not related to SuperValu. (SuperValu Ireland is owned by the Musgrave Group wholesale company of Ireland)
Former chains
- Acme Markets 117 locations (DE, Eastern & Northern MD, NJ, Eastern PA) Sold to Albertsons LLC
- Albertsons 453 locations (Southern CA, CO, ID, MT, ND, NV, OR, UT, WA and WY) Sold to Albertsons LLC
- Acme Express, Albertsons Express and Jewel Express (nationwide) Fuel centers and convenience stores - sold in 2011
- bigg's (Cincinnati, OH, Clarksville, IN, and Florence, KY) Locations sold to Remke Markets in 2010
- Bristol Farms (Southern CA) Spun off in 2010
- Lazy Acres
- Max Foods (Southern CA) Locations rebranded Lucky
- Jewel-Osco 182 locations in IL, eastern IA, northwestern IN and southeastern WI) Sold to Albertsons LLC
- Lucky Stores 5 locations (Las Vegas and Southern CA) Sold to Albertsons LLC
- Osco Pharmacy and Sav-on Pharmacy 722 pharmacies (Nationwide) Sold to Albertsons LLC
- Save-A-Lot 1250 locations of which 860 were franchised (Nationwide) Sold to Onex Corporation
- Scott's Food & Pharmacy (Fort Wayne, IN and Northeastern IN) Sold to The Kroger Co. in 2007
- ShopKo Spun off in 1991, remaining interest sold in 1997
- Shaw's and Star Market 169 locations (MA, ME, NH, RI and VT) Sold to Albertsons LLC.
- Sunflower Market (Indianapolis) Five locations closed in 2008
- Twin Valu (Ohio) Hypermarket concept, closed in 1996
Product labels
Many of the banners have "private labels".
These are the current active private label brands for SuperValu:
Some of the older inactive private label brands are:
- Hillfarm
- Economy Buy
- Home Best
- Essensia
- Chateau
- Quality Plus
- Elf
Culture
Diversity
SuperValu received a 100% rating on the Corporate Equality Index released by the Human Rights Campaign starting in 2008.
SuperValu sponsors employee resource groups globally for black, GLBT, Latino, young, handicapped, and other minorities.
Environment
Cub Foods and its parent company, SuperValu, was the first grocer in Minnesota to be awarded LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold NC2.2 Certification for one of its stores. The Cub store, located in the Phalen neighborhood of St. Paul is one of just three grocery stores in the nation to successfully achieve LEED Gold Certification.
Albertsons was the first major retailer to earn a LEED Certification on their remodeled La Habra store. It features water saving faucets, over 40 skylights, "Night" curtains over open cold cases and LED lighting.
In August 2009, SuperValu was recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for achieving their emissions target.
Controversy
In June 2002, SuperValu announced it would restate previous financial reports due to accounting irregularities uncovered at its pharmacy division. As a result, shares of the company slumped 18 percent. On July 12, 2002, SuperValu lost a lawsuit over the use of improper accounting practices regarding the cost of goods sold for at least the previous four years, and paid a $4,000,000 settlement.
Customer Data Security Breaches
SuperValu sent a letter to My CLUB Rewards members on August 25, 2014 who provided their data and shoppers who used credit cards during the period between June 22, 2014 (at the earliest) through July 17, 2014 (at the latest) at 209 SuperValu stores and stand-alone liquor stores who may have been affected by a data security breach. SuperValu posted this information on their website in a press release dated August 14, 2014. Information on the affected stores and eligibility for customers on identity protection programs are available on SuperValu's press release site.
See also
- Grocer
- List of supermarket chains in the United States
- List of S&P 500 companies
- List of companies based in Minneapolisâ€"Saint Paul
- George R. Newell House (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
References
External links
- SuperValu and a SuperValu History
- SuperValu store brands
- SuperValu 2008 Annual Report
- Most recent Quarter Results.Oliver, David (2008-07-22). "SuperValu Reports Record First Quarter Fiscal 2009 Earnings". BUSINESS WIRE. Retrieved 2008-10-02.Â
- Supermarket News:SuperValu Profile
- Craig Herkert Forbes Profile
- Cole, Heather. "Family-owned SuperValu survives in battle against superstores ." St. Louis Business Journal. December 1, 2002.