| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Retail (Grocery) |
| Founded | Bellingham, Washington (1933) |
| Headquarters | Bellingham, Washington |
| Number of locations | 32 (16 Haggen; 18 Top) |
| Products | bakery, dairy, deli, frozen foods, grocery, lottery, frozen meat, pharmacy, photographic processing, produce, seafood, snacks, liquor, flowers, and Western UnionTM |
| Owner(s) | The Comvest Group and the Haggen family |
| Website | haggen.com |
Haggen Food & Pharmacy is the largest independent grocery retailer in the Pacific Northwest. Haggen operates over thirty stores under the Haggen and Top Food & Drug name primarily on the I-5 corridor between the Canadian border and the Portland, Oregon metro area. Haggen is currently headquartered in Bellingham, Washington and got its start there in 1933 when Ben Haggen, Dorothy Haggen, and Doug Clark opened the first store on Bay Street in Bellingham.
Haggen, Inc. began in 1933 in the midst of the great depression by Benett and Dorothy Haggen, along with Dorothy's brother, Doug Clark in downtown Bellingham, Washington. The Store was first called the Economy Food Store. Business did well enough that they moved to a larger location downtown at the corner of Railroad and Magnolia Streets and renamed it The White House Grocery. An in-store bakery was opened in 1941 and proved to be very popular. By 1947, the store was ready to expand again. The Haggens closed the White House and built the Town and Country Shopping center on Meridian Street between West Illinois and Maryland streets with Haggen's Thriftway, the store's third name, as the anchor tenant. This store still operates today.
Several years later, they would change the company's name to Haggen Inc. once and for all. The store continued to prosper and by the 1960s, Haggen's was ready to expand beyond Bellingham. A store was opened in Everett, Washington in 1962 and a 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m2) store in Lynnwood, Washington in 1968.[1] Two more stores would be opened in Lynnwood in 1971 from the acquired Grocery Boy chain.[2] Expansion for the company would be slow because, unlike other grocery stores who expanded through acquisition, Haggen mostly built stores from the ground up. In 1979, the flagship store in Bellingham was expanded to over 40,000 square feet (3,700 m2), creating the chain's first superstore format with full-service departments which it still uses today.
In 1982, the TOP Foods division was created by converting existing stores in Snohomish, Washington and Wenatchee to the superstore format. This proved to be a huge success and the Top Brand was expanded greatly throughout the Puget Sound Region but avoiding Seattle because QFC, upscale Larry's Markets, Albertsons, and Safeway saturated the metropolitan area. In 1995, they expanded to Portland, Oregon opening stores under the Haggen moniker. Currently, opening of new stores has been put on hold in favor of remodeling and updating existing stores.[3][4]
Haggen became the first grocery store in US with an in-store Starbucks coffee store in 1989. On September 28, 2009 Jim Donald, former CEO of Starbucks Coffee Company was named CEO.
It was announced in January 2010 that all Haggen stores in Bellingham would no longer be open 24 hours with the exception of its Barkley Village store. The low amount of traffic was said to be the decision to change the store's hours so that the company overall could be more efficient.[5] This decision has caused mixed response. It also happened to all Top Food & Drug stores, except those in Olympia, Washington, Woodinville, Washington and Snohomish, Washington.
Haggen, Inc. announced on February 17, 2011 that brothers and co-chairmen Don and Rick Haggen had sold a controlling shareholder interest to The Comvest Group. The announcement indicated Don, Rick and other unnamed Haggen family members would maintain a minority stake in the 78-year-old grocery empire. As a part of the new ownership it was announced that president and CEO Jim Donald would immediately step down, with The Comvest Group's C.J. "Gabe" Gabriel taking over as president and CEO.[6]