WinCo Foods

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WinCo Foods, Inc.

Type	Employee-owned corporation
Founded	1967
Headquarters	Boise, Idaho
Key people	William D. Long, Chairman Steven Goddard, President & CEO Richard Charrier, COO
Industry	Retail
Products	Bakery, dairy, deli, frozen foods, general grocery, meat, produce, seafood, snacks, liquor, bulk foods
Employees	>8,000
Website	www.wincofood.com

WinCo Foods is an employee-owned supermarket business headquartered in Boise, Idaho. The company's name was decided by the employees both in the stores and the distribution centers in a contest to rename the company. It is short for "Winning Company", but the name also forms an acronym of the five Western United States it has stores in: Washington, Idaho, Nevada, California and Oregon.

WinCo Foods has over 60 stores[1] and was the 105th largest private company in 2006, according to Forbes

[edit] History

In 1967 Ralph Ward and Bud Williams opened a discount warehouse grocery store under the name Waremart in Boise, Idaho. WinCo ran stores under the names Waremart Food Centers and Cub Foods before changing its name to WinCo Foods in 1999. However, only one Waremart Foods store still exists in Independence, Oregon. When the company renamed all Waremart and Cub stores to WinCo, they began replacing smaller stores with bigger stores ranging from 70,000 to 90,000 square-feet.

The chain has been employee-owned since 1985, when the WinCo Foods Employee Stock Ownership Trust (Employee Pension Plan) purchased a majority interest of WinCo from the Ward family.

Bill Long has served as president of WinCo Foods since 1978.

WinCo currently operates three distribution centers in Woodburn, Oregon, Myrtle Creek, Oregon, and Modesto, California.