This section includes historical material on some national and regional chains in the US and Canada. These are individual history pages on various chains around the country that have some historical interest and on which I’ve done some research.
Please keep the following in mind:
- I am not maintaining most of the chain histories as actively now as I used to be. Most of my work is focused on the location lists presented here, although I do try to add (or link) interesting information resources in this section as I find them.
- This is not a list of every supermarket chain that’s ever existed in the US or Canada and it never will be.
- Some pages have more information than others. Again, it is not my goal to document every chain that has ever existed in the United States or Canada, and it and only includes chains on which I have done some research.
- If your favorite is not included, I encourage you to read about my methodology and maybe even submit a history to be included here.
In this section:
- Histories of Some Selected National Chains
- Histories of Some Selected Regional Chains
- Almacs
- American Stores/ACME
- Alpha-Beta
- Bel Air (Sacramento)
- H.C. Bohack
- Cala Foods and Bell Markets
- Central Market, Price Chopper, and Market 32
- Centromart
- Colonial Stores, Pender’s, and Big Star
- Food Lion, Bloom, and Bottom Dollar
- Fry’s
- First National/Finast
- Giant Eagle
- Giant Food (Washington, DC)
- Grand Union
- Hannaford Bros
- Harris Teeter
- HEB (H.E Butt)
- Hughes Markets
- Jewel
- Littleman Stores
- Lucky Stores
- Market Basket
- Mayfair Markets
- Metro
- Penn Fruit
- Publix
- Purity Stores (California)
- QFI
- Save-Mart
- Raley’s
- Ralphs Grocery Company
- Stater Bros
- Steinberg
- Stop & Shop
- Thriftimart
- Tops Markets
- Vons
- Winn-Dixie
Additional resources:
- Wikipedia: Defunct Grocery Retailers (US)
- Wikipedia: Current Supermarket Chains (US)
- Wikipedia: Defunct Grocery Retailers (Canada)
- Wikipedia: Current Supermarket Chains (Canada)
- Pleasant Family Shopping
- Funding Universe
