Jewel (supermarket)

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The Jewel Companies, Inc.
Type	Grocery
Founded	1899 (Chicago, Illinois, United States)
Headquarters	Melrose Park, Illinois
Key people	Jeff Noddle, Chairman and CEO Mike Jackson, President and COO Kevin Tripp, R.Ph, Executive Vice President; President, Retail Midwest
Industry	Retail
Products	Bakery, dairy, deli, frozen foods, grocery, meat, pharmacy, produce, seafood, snacks, liquor
Parent	Supervalu Inc.
Website	http://www.jewelosco.com/

Jewel is an American supermarket chain that has approximately 200 stores in the Chicago metropolitan area. Jewel's warehouse and management offices are located in Melrose Park, Illinois. As of June 2, 2006, Jewel and Jewel-Osco have become a wholly owned subsidiary of Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based Supervalu. Supervalu has publicly stated that Jewel's headquarters and operations management will remain in Melrose Park, while the support for the Osco side of the company will remain in Scottsdale, Arizona for the time being.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Beginning 1.2 American Stores 1.3 Albertsons and Supervalu 1.4 Today 2 Jewel Grand Bazaar 3 Chain expansion 4 Organizational philosophy 5 Stores 6 References 7 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Beginning

Jewel was founded in Chicago, Illinois, by Frank Vernon Skiff in 1899 as a door-to-door delivery service for coffee. In 1902 it took the name Jewel Tea Company when Skiff partnered with Frank P. Ross. In 1932 Jewel acquired the Chicago unit of Loblaw Groceterias, Inc., then a chain of 72 self-service stores and four Chicago grocery stores operated by the Middle West Stores Company, and began operating them under the name Jewel Food Stores, Inc.

In 1934, Jewel Food Stores merged with Jewel Tea Company. In the 1960s and 1970s, Eisner Food Stores, located in downstate Illinois, were part of the Jewel company; some time in the early 1980s, those store were converted to the Jewel name. Jewel sold its home shopping service in 1981.

Before 1970, Jewel stores were typically located on main arteries of city streets. Between 1970 and 1990, Jewel moved or expanded most of their stores to be freestanding buildings with ample parking. After its 1961 acquisition of Osco, Jewel built and operated many side-by-side stores during the 1960s and 1970s, but most construction after 1983 consolidated Jewel and Osco stores together as one large store under one roof. The two stores operate to the customer as one unit; for instance, a customer can check out any items at Jewel or Osco registers, find Jewel and Osco merchandise co-mingled throughout the store, and can call one telephone number to reach their Jewel-Osco. However, each operating unit keeps its own separate marketing identity to the public as a "food store" or a "drug store." Jewel and Osco stores under the same roof have separate managers, ordering and receiving procedures, budgets, and employees.

[edit] American Stores

Jewel Food Stores was taken over by American Stores in 1984.

To consolidate the names of some of its subsidiaries under one title with nationwide recognition, American Stores renamed some of its Skaggs Alpha Beta stores to Jewel Osco in mid-September 1991. American replaced the Skaggs Alpha Beta name with that of Jewel Osco on all 76 stores in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arkansas. Within months, the renamed stores in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas would be sold to Albertsons.

[edit] Albertsons and Supervalu

Jewel became part of Albertsons holdings in 1999 when American Stores was taken over.^[1]

Seven years later, parent company Albertsons and its stores would be taken over by two separate groups. With the approval on May 30, 2006 by shareholders of the break-up of Albertsons, all Jewel-Osco and Jewel Food Stores outside of Springfield, Illinois are now wholly owned by Supervalu (and the Springfield stores, which had been acquired by an investment group led by Cerberus Capital Management, are being sold to the operators of the Cub Foods stores in the Springfield market, who will rebrand them as Cub Foods), while all free-standing Osco drugstores are now owned by CVS. The company will continue to use the Osco name as the licenses for pharmacies in Albertsons, Jewel, Star Market and Shaw's.

[edit] Today

Currently, Jewel, together with sister company Osco Drug, employ over 45,000 associates. Its customer base gives it a near 44% share of the grocery market in Chicagoland ^[1], where the chain shares a virtual duopoly with the Safeway Inc.-owned Dominick's chain. Eighty percent of all households in Chicagoland are in a Jewel-Osco store at least once a month. One day local cashier Joseph Renardo scanned 1 million dollars worth of food. He set the Jewel record for 1-day scanning. ^[2]

[edit] Jewel Grand Bazaar

From 1962 into the 1970s, the chain operated an experimental Jewel Grand Bazaar, which built out in one store on the southwest side of Chicago—a store that encompassed an entire city block. This store featured bulk packaging, free samples on weekends, and 24-hour service. See photos: photos This experimental store was in service from 1962 until that particular building was remodeled and updated in the late 1970s.

[edit] Chain expansion

Jewel-Osco has steadily expanded in the Chicago area. Only eleven of the chain's Chicago stores are the stand-alone Jewel Food Stores that date back to the 1950s and '60s; the rest are all newer Jewel-Osco concept stores. In 1989 American Stores expanded to Florida^[3] using the Jewel-Osco name but operating as a separate division distinct from the midwest Jewel-Osco operations. Florida was considered a good market for Jewel because of the high number of Chicagoans who had relocated to that state. However, after a few years, Jewel closed those stores. In the late 1990s, Jewel purchased a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, food chain and opened fifteen Jewel-Osco combo stores in the Milwaukee metro area, some of which employ urban designs^[4].

Workers at Chicago area Jewel stores are members of the UFCW Local 881, make higher wages than workers in nonunionized stores, and constitute a stable workforce.^[2] Meat and deli employees are members of UFCW Local 1546.

[edit] Organizational philosophy

A 1972 book written by Jewel senior leaders, The Jewel Concepts, stressed good citizenship within their community, "watching the horizon," and sponsorship of young people.

In an Illinois Retail Merchants Association online article, retired Jewel-Osco chairman Don Perkins reflects, "Jewel has a tradition of people orientation." One of these traditions came in the form of the "first assistant" philosophy of management.^[2] Each higher-level manager was to see himself or herself as serving the employees he or she managed. On the store level, this would mean that the manager would be the "first assistant" to the employees by making personal contact and taking personal interest, solving problems, suggesting solutions, and using flexibility in order to best serve the employees' concerns. Then the floor employees' duty was to be in service as the "first assistant" to the customers.

Jewel also was progressive in creating partnerships with vendors, at a time when the practice was rare.

[edit] Stores

• These stores are now owned by Supervalu
  • Jewel-Osco and Jewel, Chicago Metro: 170
  • Jewel-Osco, Milwaukee Metro: 15
  • Jewel-Osco and Jewel, Central and Western Illinois, Eastern Iowa: 10
• These stores are now owned by Cerberus
  • Jewel-Osco, Springfield, Illinois: 2 (currently being sold, and will become independently-operated Cub Foods franchises)
• All freestanding Osco stores (90 in the Chicagoland and Milwaukee area) are now owned by CVS and will be rebranded as CVS/pharmacy.

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} http://www.hoovers.com/jewel-osco/--ID__109103--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml
2. ^ ^{a b c} http://www.irma.org/retailersoftheyear/contentview.asp?c=5354
3. ^ http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3374/is_n7_v11/ai_9164448
4. ^ (All three links refer to the portions of the same online article) http://www.jsonline.com/bym/news/dec04/283065.asp http://www.jsonline.com/bym/news/dec04/283436.asp http://graphics.jsonline.com/graphics/bym/img/dec04/jewel121204.jpg

[edit] External links

• Official website
• Early president of Jewel, Franklin Lunding
• "First Assistant" Philosophy of Jewel president Don Perkins (in an article about the founder of Staples)
• Book's table of contents that includes segment on Don Perkins, retired CEO of Jewel