Hannaford Bros. Co.

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Hannaford Bros. Company

Type	Subsidiary of Delhaize Group
Founded	1883 (Portland, Maine)
Headquarters	Scarborough, Maine
Key people	Ron Hodge, Chairman and CEO
Industry	Retail
Products	Bakery, dairy, deli, floral, frozen foods, grocery, liquor, meat, pharmacy, produce, seafood, snacks, sushi
Website	http://www.hannaford.com/

Typical Hannaford store.

Hannaford is an American supermarket chain based in Scarborough, Maine. Founded in 1883, Hannaford now operates more than 150 stores in New York and New England. Formerly known as Shop'n'Save, Hannaford is owned by the American subsidiary of the Belgian Delhaize Group, Delhaize America, which owns over 1,500 stores along the Eastern Seaboard, mostly in the Mid-Atlantic US.

1 History
2 Criticism
3 Hannaford products in other stores
4 References
5 External links

[edit] History

Hannaford was founded in 1883 by Arthur Hannaford as a small produce store along the Portland, Maine waterfront.

In 1902 Arthur Hannaford's brothers, Howard and Edward, joined the business and they incorporated Hannaford Bros. Co. By 1920 the company became a leading produce wholesaler in northern New England. Hannaford then relocated to a new five-story warehouse on Cross St., Portland, Maine. In 1939, with the purchase of H. S. Melcher Co., sponsor of Red & White stores in Maine, Hannaford expanded into the wholesale grocery business. Late in 1944, Hannaford Co. opened its first "retail outlet" under a unique "equity partnership" arrangement with William T. Cottle.

By 1960, Hannaford Bros. had constructed a 200,000 square-foot distribution center in South Portland to better service more retail stores. With the purchase of 31 Sampson's grocery stores in 1961 as well as the 1967 purchase of Progressive Distributors, Hannaford soon expanded its retail presence. By 1971, the company's earnings topped $1 million.

Hannaford continued to rapidly expand throughout the 1970s and 1980s by opening the Welby Drug Store chain, many of which were incorporated into Shop'n' Save retail stores. By 1987 the company expanded into New York and Massachusetts; that same year sales hit $1 billion. In the 1990s, Hannaford began an expansion into the Southeast by purchasing a small Southeastern North Carolina supermarket chain, Wilson's Supermarkets, which served as the foundation of an expansion of Hannaford stores into the Carolinas and Virginia. In 2000, Delhaize America bought Hannaford; the purchase both eliminated an emerging competitor to its Food Lion chain in the Southeast and expanded its operations into the Northeast.

The Hannaford name first took over for Shop 'n' Save on private labels in 1996. Five years later, stores in the Portland, Maine, area assumed the name, with their counterparts in the rest of the state as well as New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont. As of 2006, only a small number of locations continue to use the Shop 'n' Save banner. Stores that are independently owned and operated franchises that receive merchandise through Hannaford's wholesale distribution use the Shop 'n' Save name, mainly in smaller communities. In 2005, 19 Victory Supermarkets in Massachusetts and New Hampshire were purchased and converted to Hannaford stores. Some Hannaford locations in North Carolina were sold to Lowes Foods upon the buyout by Delhaize America while others were closed.

[edit] Criticism

The company faced criticism shortly after voters in Augusta, Maine approved a new store on the location of the old Cony High School. Members of the Eastside Neighborhood Network (ENN) charge the new store is "the wrong project in that location."^[1] The ENN charges the proximity to one of the most dangerous rotaries in the state as well as the closeness to an eastside neighborhood will be detrimental to the city and its welfare.

Other criticisms include low pay, with some employees making less than $10.00 an hour after 29 years of service.^{[citation needed]} The company has also faced a lawsuit of discriminating against the handicapped. In 2004, employees of the store in Gardiner, Maine mistook a man with a disability for being drunk, refusing him the sale of alcohol. The company was ordered to pay damages.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Hannaford products in other stores

Hannaford products are also now offered in all Bloom markets and Sweetbay Supermarkets, new grocery stores recently introduced elsewhere in the United States by Hannaford's parent company, Delhaize.^[2]

Hannaford has its headquarters in Scarborough, Maine.