Red Food
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Red Food | |
 |
|
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1908 |
| Headquarters | Chattanooga, Tennessee |
| Industry | Retail (Grocery) |
| Products | Bakery, dairy, deli, frozen foods, general grocery, meat, pharmacy, produce, seafood, snacks |
| Slogan | "Red Food. Only the Best." |
Red Food Stores, Inc. (or just Red Food) was a supermarket chain headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which is now defunct. It operated stores mostly in northwest Georgia, northeast Alabama, and southeast Tennessee. Around 55 stores were operated.
[edit] History
Red Food started in 1908 by Frank McDonald. In 1979, Promodès, a food distribution firm based in Caen, France, made a bid to buy Red Food Stores, Inc. for $23 million. By 1980, the acquisition was completed, for a total of $36 million. The Red Food purchase gave Promodès a chain of 23 supermarkets centered primarily in southern Tennessee, but with stores in Georgia and Alabama as well. In order to finance Promodès' expansion, which would invest more than Ffr 2 billion between 1979 and 1984, the company went public in 1979.
In 1994, Red Food Stores, Inc. was bought by Ahold, while Red Food stores were changed into Ahold's BI-LO stores in 1995. Advertisements showed a paper bag with the BI-LO logo (currently used today) standing in front of a paper bag with the last Red Food logo on it. BI-LO's slogan during that time was "BI-LO. The name fits."
[edit] Trivia
- The first logo used by Red Food Stores, Inc. was similar to the second one (as seen in this article), but with a rooster in the middle of it. The last logo used was plain red with little or no curves around the inside and outside of the letters. It was introduced a year[citation needed] before Ahold bought the company.
- During World War II, for their first time, Red Food sold turkeys for forty-five cents per pound to customers for Thanksgiving. They also told customers to "invite a soldier and serve turkey this Thanksgiving."[citation needed]
