History Originally Smiths was a family run grocery store started by Lorenzo Smith in , who rented a small space and turned it into a grocery store selling household staples such as rice and flour. The largest growth percentage of the company was between and , which saw the company refurbished and see a gross revenue increase of 50 percent.
Sadly, the founder died soon after this momentous growth spurt. Later in the s the company was forced to expand out of the Brigham City area as the area was saturated with similar stores and in the next decade over stores sprang up across South Western America. Sales were slow but steady, and in the company weathered an week strike by Las Vegas workers. The strike did not prevent Smith's from becoming the second largest privately held supermarket chain by the end of In Dee Smith's five- and ten-year plans were implemented, but Smith died during the year and left the company to the control of the third generation of Smith sons.
The new management team that was assembled nearly doubled sales and profits from to Jeff Smith took over for his father as chief executive officer, and under his reign the company experienced accelerated growth. Dee Smith's plan to "phase out smaller, older conventional stores and superstores and replace them with larger combination food and drug centers" was successfully carried out by his sons despite intense competition.
By 76 of the company's 95 stores were combination food and drugstores ranging in size from 45, to 84, feet. New stores constructed in and averaged 72, square feet, continuing the modernization plan. The expansionist policy included replacing existing stores and pursuing intense cost-cutting strategies. This was supported by expanding and modernizing the company's warehouse facilities to vertically integrate the processing and distribution of perishable goods; achieve greater in-house warehousing to capitalize on economies of scale; and reorganize its transportation and distribution facilities.
To this end, the company planned to build a one million-square-foot, fully integrated distribution facility to warehouse the goods for the region. To raise the money necessary to gain a foothold in the highly competitive California market a planned 60 stores in five years , Smith's management decided to take the company public in Next, in an effort to keep the company in the Smith family and also foil takeovers, certain classes of stock were designated for ownership solely by the Smith family.
The value of the shares skyrocketed initially but stabilized within the year. The next biggest block, 8. The California market would be extremely competitive and some industry analysts expected price wars.
Further, the California stores would be unionized, unlike most of Smith's other stores. Yet there were more people in the southern California region than in all of Smith's other markets combined, and the store could offer competitive prices. The degree of growth realized, however, would likely depend on the state of employment in the region in the next decade and on the outcome of the battle with such chains as Von's Grocery Co.
Smith's predicted it would be able to capture about 6 percent of the region's market when its first 50 to 60 stores were opened. Despite the seeming promise of high population density on the West Coast, and although Smith's had fared well in competition with such formidable chains as Von's, Lucky, and Albertson's in other regions in the past, the southern California market proved particularly difficult to penetrate.
By the mids, with 34 stores open in the region, Smith's resolved to pull out of southern California. Smith's broad restructuring came into full swing in , when the company signed a merger agreement with Yucaipa, one of southern California's prominent grocery store operators.
Yucaipa's Ronald W. Roland as president and chief operating officer. With the addition of the Smitty's stores to its ranks, Smith's became the top supermarket chain in the Phoenix area. In the rapidly consolidating supermarket industry, Smith's further advanced its competitive position only a few months later when it agreed to merge with Portland, Oregon-based Fred Meyer, Inc. Under the terms of the "merger of equals," which was structured as a stock-for-stock exchange, Ron Burkle became chairman of the board, while Fred Meyer's chief executive, Robert G.
Miller, became president and CEO. The merger was completed by September When the merger was complete in May , the combined company operated 2, stores in 31 states. Ron Burkle lauded the deal, calling himself a "firm believer" in the benefits of consolidation, and many viewed Kroger's bulking up as a necessary step to compete effectively with the industry's reigning goliath, Wal-Mart.
Indeed, Kroger received a major endorsement from the Federal Trade Commission when, despite the company's huge increase in size, it was required to sell only eight stores to meet antitrust conditions. Kroger aimed to give its subsidiary stores as much autonomy as possible, and the merger had little effect on Smith's Utah stores.
In Arizona, however, where Kroger already operated Fry's, a well-positioned chain, the majority of Smith's stores were subsumed under the Fry's name. In combining the operations of the two chains, Smith's stores received a total makeover, including new computer systems, new store decor, and new merchandise, replacing Smith's signature label products with those of Fry's.
By consolidating operations to a single chain in Arizona, Kroger aimed to cut costs significantly. While major shifts occurred at the corporate level during the late s, Smith's prepared to enter the 21st century by initiating numerous marketing programs at the store level that were designed to gain and retain loyal customers.
In Smith's introduced its "Fresh Values Frequent Shopper Card," whereby customers received savings by using the card instead of clipping coupons and the company gained the ability to track customer spending habits in the process. In , Smith's installed automated checkout systems in many of its stores in response to customer demand for greater speed and convenience at the checkout counter.
Is Target owned by French? Is Kroger German? Founder Bernard Henry Kroger was the son of German immigrants. His father, John Henry Kroger, was a merchant who owned a dry goods store in Cincinnati. What is Kroger called in California? Ralphs is an American supermarket chain in Southern California. Kroger also operates stores under the Food 4 Less and Foods Co. Is Publix cheaper than Kroger? Of course, the price isn't the only thing that's important to shoppers.
This comparison doesn't take into consideration other factors like food quality, store cleanliness and customer service. Is Smith's owned by Kroger? Smith's Food and Drug. Now a subsidiary of Kroger, it is a prominent regional supermarket chain operating in the Southwest and Northwest. How late is Smith's open?
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