SuperValu (United States)
SuperValu, Inc. is an American wholesaler and retailer of grocery products. The company, headquartered in the Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, has been in business since 1926. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of United Natural Foods (UNFI). On July 26, 2018, SuperValu announced that it had agreed to be purchased by Providence, RI-based United Natural Foods Inc., the largest distributor to Whole Foods Market and other natural foods stores. UNFI would pay $1.3 billion in cash and assume another $1.6 billion in SuperValu debt and liabilities. UNFI said it expects the deal  to result in roughly $175 million in savings over three years and that it would divest itself of SuperValu's grocery stores. 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 was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1967. 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. SuperValu founded the clothing store County Seat in 1973 and sold it to Carson  Pirie Scott in 1983. In 1975, SuperValu acquired Hornbacher's. 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". In 2003, SuperValu acquired the former Midwest operations of Fleming Companies from C&S Wholesale Grocers, including the Sentry Foods and Festival Foods brands. 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: 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. 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. In  2012, SuperValu operated 2,505 food and food/drug combination stores, 878 in-store pharmacies, and 117 fuel centers and served as primary distributor to an additional 2,200 stores. SuperValu also supplied a network of independent retailers (often found in smaller cities) that sometimes use the SuperValu name. However, these stores were not owned by the company. SuperValu also franchised the Cub Foods and Save-A-Lot brands to independent retailers. The company operated on a strategy of effective and efficient food distribution, conducting its retail food operations through a total of 2,349 retail food stores that were supplied by 32  distribution centers. 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 was CEO of Canadian Tire from 2000 to 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 and Shop ‘n Save 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. On March 14, 2018 Supervalu announced it would be closing 21 of its 38 Farm Fresh locations, selling 18 to Kroger and 3 to Food Lion. On January 13, 2013, Sam Duncan, who had retired as CEO of OfficeMax in 2011, was named CEO of SuperValu. Duncan announced his retirement in October 2015. 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. On February 3, 2016, Mark Gross was named CEO of SuperValu, replacing Sam Duncan. In October 2016, SuperValu announced they were 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. Later in 2017, SuperValu acquired Associated Grocers of Florida. Sale of Company. On July 26, 2018, United Natural Foods agreed to buy Supervalu for $2.9 billion in cash. On October 22, 2018, UNFI completed the acquisition of Supervalu. Sean Griffin was named the CEO of Supervalu, replacing Mark Gross. 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: 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. Chains. At the time of its acquisition by United Natural Foods in 2018, the company operated under multiple retail banners, or chains: Food Depot Former chains. SuperValu had previously operated other chains: 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: Culture. Diversity. SuperValu received a 100% rating on the Corporate Equality Index released by the Human Rights Campaign starting in 2008. 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. Accounting irregularities and practices in 2002. 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 Cub 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.