Carter's Foods

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Carter's Foods
Fate	Bankrupt
Founded	1952
Defunct	mid-2006
Location	Charlotte, Michigan, USA
Industry	Retail
Products	bakery, beer, dairy, deli, frozen foods, general merchandise, liquor, meat, produce, seafood, wine
Key people	Theodore Carter (founder)

Carter's Foods, more commonly known as Carter's, was an employee-owned supermarket chain based in Charlotte, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1952, the chain grew to over thirty locations throughout Michigan's Lower Peninsula. In 2006, the chain declared bankruptcy, with the last of its stores being shuttered or sold. Until the chain's demise, Carter's Foods was the only grocery chain in Michigan to be entirely owned by its employees.

[edit] History

Carter's Foods was founded in 1952 by Theodore Carter.^[1] A native of Charlotte, Michigan, Theodore had previously been an employee of the Kroger store in his hometown.^[2]

Carter's expanded over the next several decades, mainly by acquiring IGA locations. IGA was also the primary supplier for the Carter's chain.^[2]

In 1999, Sperry and Hutchinson, a company known for its S&H Green Stamps, introduced a new rewards program called S&H Greenpoints; Carter's Foods was the first chain in Michigan to utilize the Greenpoints system.^[3]

Starting in 2000, Carter's Foods became 100 percent employee-owned, and thus became the only supermarket chain in the state to be employee-owned.^[1]

Carter's had seen a decline revenues for several years, citing competition from Wal-Mart and regional supercenter chain Meijer. The chain filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2006, after it was unable to pay several million dollars in debts to its suppliers.^[4] The last fourteen Carter's stores closed in mid-2006. Several were reverted to IGA or Spartan Stores,^[5] while the remainder were shuttered.

[edit] References