Shaw's Supermarkets

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Shaw's Supermarkets, Inc.
Type of Company	Subsidiary of Supervalu
Founded	1919 (East Bridgewater, Massachusetts)
Headquarters	East Bridgewater, Massachusetts
Key people	Jeff Noddle, Chairman and CEO Mike Jackson, President and COO John Hooley, Executive Vice President; President, Retail East
Industry	Retail
Products	Bakery, dairy, deli, floral, frozen foods, grocery, liquor, meat, pharmacy, produce, seafood, snacks, sushi
Website	http://www.shaws.com/

Shaw's, along with sister store, Star Market, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based Supervalu. The company is presently the second largest grocery group in the northeast United States, the largest being Stop & Shop. The company is based in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts and employs roughly 30,000 associates across New England.

Shaw's was acquired by Albertsons in 2004, which acquired the chain from J Sainsbury plc for $2.5 billion. In 1999, Shaw's acquired the Star Market chain of supermarkets. Star Market was formerly owned by Investcorp.

Their slogan is "Shaw's: Helping make your life easier."

Contents 1 History 1.1 Beginning 1.2 Expansion 1.3 The Acquisitions 1.4 Sainsbury, Albertsons and Supervalu sale 2 Osco 3 Sources 4 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Beginning

In the late 1850s, George C. Shaw opened a small teashop in Portland, Maine. Meanwhile, Maynard A. Davis established a group of small downtown grocery stores in the Brockton, Massachusetts and New Bedford, Massachusetts areas called Brockton Public Market or BPM. In 1919, Mr. Davis purchased George C. Shaw Company and made it a subsidiary of BPM.

[edit] Expansion

As George C. Shaw and BPM stores continued to grow, it was decided that a central grocery warehouse would be needed for the future growth of the two companies. In 1961, a warehouse in Brockton was purchased.

By 1965, George C. Shaw had begun to move into other areas of the state and into Northern Massachusetts and New Hampshire. This expansion, combined with BPM's growth in volume in Southern Massachusetts moved the companies to build a distribution center in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts in 1972. In the 1980's a new warehouse was built in Wells, Maine and in January 1991 Shaw's opened a distribution facility for perishable food items in Methuen, Massachusetts.

In 1978, BPM stores in Massachusetts changed their names to Shaw's Supermarkets, Inc. to maximize advertising. It was the first step in the contemplated merger of the two companies.

In November 1983 J Sainsbury plc, then the UK's largest supermarket group, purchased 21% of Shaw's outstanding stock. In June of 1987, Sainsbury's acquired controlling interest.

[edit] The Acquisitions

J Sainsbury plc acquired stores from four other New England food retailers: Iandoli's (1987), the Edwards Food stores, Cerrentani's (1993) and the Star Market Company (1999).

In 1995, Shaws entered the State of Connecticut. It started with five brand new stores and then in 1996 Sainsbury purchased twelve former Edwards Supermarkets and two future sites from Royal Ahold.

The largest supermarket chain to join the Shaw's family is the Star Market Company. This acquisition strengthened Shaw's position as the second largest supermarket company in New England. Like Shaw's, the Star Market Company had humble beginnings and a long line of "firsts" in the supermarket industry. Star was the first New England supermarket company to have air conditioned store, touch method of ringing registers, in-store check verification, refrigerated cooked foods, self-service wrapped meats and packaged produce.

[edit] Sainsbury, Albertsons and Supervalu sale

In 2004, J Sainsbury sold Shaw's to Albertsons for $2.48 billion. On June 2, 2006, a partnership of Supervalu, CVS Corporation, and several investment firms including Cerberus Capital acquired Albertsons with the intent to divy up the parts. Supervalu received what is generally thought of as the best-performing assets, which included Shaw's and Star Market, along with other well-regarded regional chains such as Acme Markets (Philadelphia) and Jewel and Jewel-Osco (Chicagoland).

In late August 2006, Shaw's announced it would be closing down 6 underperforming stores on October 28, 2006. These stores are located in New Britain, Southington, and Bridgeport, Connecticut; along with Worcester, and New Bedford, Massachusetts. [1] [2] [3]

[edit] Osco

Before it was acquired by Shaw's, Star Market Company had been part of Jewel Companies, and while Jewel owned Star it built many combination food-drug stores that it branded as "Star-Osco," with common checkstands but separate management teams. While it owned Star, Jewel built many stand-alone Osco Drug stores in New England as well. After Jewel was acquired by American Stores in 1984, the Star-Osco stores were re-badged as Star Markets, and placed under a single management team. Shortly after Albertsons acquired American Stores in 1999, it sold its New England Osco Drug locations to Jean Coutu group, which added them to its Brooks Pharmacy group. When Star was sold to J Sainsbury plc, the Osco connection was ended, or so we thought. But when Albertsons bought Sainsbury's American supermarket assets, including Star Markets, Star and Osco were reunited under one corporate umbrella. In 2004 and 2005, the signs on the front of all of Albertsons grocery stores with in-store pharmacies were changed, adding either "Osco" or "Sav-On" to the store's logos, to emphasize the one-stop shopping available inside. The drug store name chosen reflected which of Albertson's drug chains operated in the specific marketing area. Because New England had previously been an Osco market area, the Shaw's and Star Markets with pharmacies were renamed "Shaw's-Osco" and "Star-Osco."

[edit] Sources

The Shaw's Supermarket's history comes from the most recent version of the Shaw's Associate Handbook.

[edit] External links

• shaws.com