Safeway, Inc. is an American supermarket chain that was acquired by private equity investors led by Cerberus Capital Management in January 2015. The new merged company which includes the Albertsons supermarket chain has more than 2,200 stores and over 250,000 employees[2] which makes it the second largest supermarket chain in North America, after The Kroger Company, which has 2,625 stores.[3] Safeway's primary base of operations is in the western and central United States,[4] with some stores located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern Seaboard. The company is headquartered in Pleasanton, California.
Supermarket News ranked Safeway No. 4 in the 2011 "Top 75 North American Food Retailers" based on 2010 fiscal year estimated sales of $41 billion.[5] Based on 2009 revenue, Safeway is the 11th largest retailer in the United States.[6]
In 1915, Marion Barton Skaggs purchased his father's 576-square-foot (53.5 m2) grocery store in American Falls, Idaho, for $1,089. The chain, which operated as two separate businesses, Skaggs Cash Stores and Skaggs United Stores, grew quickly, and Skaggs enlisted the help of his five brothers to help grow the network of stores. M.B.'s business strategy, to give his customers value and to expand by keeping a narrow profit margin, proved spectacularly successful. By 1926, he had opened 428 Skaggs stores in 10 states. M.B. almost doubled the size of his business that year when he merged his company with 322 Safeway stores and incorporated as Safeway, Inc.[7]
The original slogan was "an admonition and an invitation" to "Drive the Safeway; buy the Safeway". The point of the name was that the grocery operated on a cash-and-carry basis -- it did not offer credit, as grocers traditionally had done. It was the "safe way" to buy because a family could not get into debt via its grocery bill (as many families did at the time, especially during the Great Depression).
In 1926, Charles E. Merrill founder of the Merrill Lynch brokerage firm, saw an opportunity to consolidate the West Coast grocery industry. Towards this end, he purchased the 322-store Safeway chain of W.R.H. Weldon, who wished to exit retailing and concentrate on wholesale. Then, in June 1926, Merrill offered Skaggs either $7 million outright or $1.5 million plus 30,000 shares in the merged firm. Skaggs took the latter.[8] On July 1, 1926, Safeway merged with the 673 stores from Skaggs United Stores of Idaho and Skaggs Cash Stores of California. On completion of the Skaggs/Safeway merger, M. B. Skaggs became the Chief Executive of the business.[9] Two years later, M.B. listed Safeway on the New York Stock Exchange. In the 1930s, Safeway introduced produce pricing by the pound, adding "sell by" dates on perishables, nutritional labeling, and some of the first parking lots.
The merger instantly created the largest chain of grocery stores west of the Mississippi.[10] In the 1930s, Charles E. Merrill temporarily left Merrill Lynch to help manage Safeway. At the time of the merger, the company was headquartered in Reno, Nevada. In 1929, it was relocated to a former grocery warehouse in Oakland, California. Safeway headquarters remained there until the move to Pleasanton, California in 1996.
On April 18, 2005, Safeway began a $100 million brand repositioning campaign labeled "Ingredients for life." This was done in an attempt to differentiate itself from its competitors, and to increase brand involvement. Steve Burd described it as "branding the shopping experience".[40]
The launch included a redesigned logo, a new slogan "Ingredients for life" alongside a four-panel life icon to be used throughout stores and advertising, and a web application called "FoodFlex" to improve consumer nutrition. Many locations are being converted to the "Lifestyle" format. The new look was designed by Michigan-based PPC Design. In addition to the "inviting decor with warm ambiance and subdued lighting", the move required heavy redesign of store layout, new employee uniforms, sushi and olive bars, and the addition of in-store Starbucks kiosks (with cupholders on grocery carts). The change also involved differentiating the company from competitors with promotions based on the company's extensive loyalty card database.
At the end of 2004, there were 142 "Lifestyle" format stores in the United States and Canada, with plans to open or remodel another 300 stores with this type of theme the following year. "Lifestyle" format stores have seen significantly higher average weekly sales than their other stores. By the end of 2006, shares were up, proving this rebranding campaign had a major impact on sale figures.
In 2007, the 1000th "Lifestyle" store was built in Everett, Washington. read more