Kroger
The Kroger Company, or simply Kroger, is an American retail company that operates (either directly or through its subsidiaries[5]) supermarkets and multi-department stores throughout the United States.[1][6]
This article is about the company. For other uses, see Kroger (disambiguation).Company type
1883, in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
2,719 supermarkets (Q1 2023)[1]
United States
Supercenter/superstore,
Other specialty, supermarket
US$3.477 billion (2022)[3]
US$1.655 billion (2022)[3]
US$49.086 billion (2022)[3]
US$9.452 billion (2022)[3]
465,000 (2022)[4]
Inter-American Products
various chains
Founded by Bernard Kroger in 1883 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Kroger operates 2,719 grocery retail stores under its various banners and divisions in 35 states and the District of Columbia[6] with store formats that include 134 multi-department stores, 2,273 combo stores, 191 marketplace stores, and 121 price-impact warehouse stores.[1][6] Kroger operates 33 manufacturing plants, 1,642 supermarket fuel centers, 2,254 pharmacies, 225 The Little Clinic in-store medical clinics, and 127 jewelry stores (782 convenience stores were sold to EG Group in 2018).[1][6] Kroger's headquarters are located in downtown Cincinnati.[7]
The Kroger Company is the United States' largest supermarket operator by revenue[8] and fifth-largest general retailer.[9] The company is one of the largest American-owned private employers in the United States.[10][11][12] Kroger is ranked #17 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.[13]
About two-thirds of Kroger's employees are represented by collective bargaining agreements,[14] with most being represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).[15]
History[edit]
Beginning[edit]
In 1883, 23-year-old Bernard Kroger, the fifth of ten children of German immigrants, invested his life savings of $372 (equivalent to $12,164 in 2023) to open a grocery store at 66 Pearl Street in downtown Cincinnati.[16] The son of a merchant, he ran his business with a simple motto: "Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself."[11][17] He experimented with marketing products his company had produced so that his customers would not need to patronize separate stores and farms.
In 1884, Kroger opened his second store. By 1902, Kroger Grocery and Baking Company had been incorporated.[18] By this time, the company had grown to forty stores and sold $1.75 million worth of merchandise each year. In addition, Kroger became the first grocery chain to have its own bakery.[19]
In 1916, Kroger company began using self-service shopping. Before this, all articles were kept behind counters. Customers would ask for them, then clerks would deliver them to customers.[19]
In 1929, it was rumored that Safeway would merge with Kroger.[20][21] It took nearly a century before this rumor became reality, when Kroger announced in 2022 that it would acquire Safeway's parent company, Albertsons.
In the 1930s, Kroger Grocery and Baking Company became the first grocery chain to monitor product quality and to test foods offered to customers. It also became the first company with a store surrounded on all four sides by parking lots.[22] In 1932, the company tested a pilot project after it opened a grocery store in Indianapolis.[23] The facility, which was surrounded by a 75-car parking space, allowed the company to determine the close relationship between parking facilities and gross sales.[23]
Other operations[edit]
Pharmacy Group[edit]
Kroger previously owned and operated the SupeRx drug store chain. In 1985, Kroger outbid Rite Aid for the Hook's Drug Stores chain, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, and combined it with SupeRx to become Hook's-SupeRx. In 1994, Kroger decided to exit the stand-alone drugstore business and sold its Hook's and SupeRx stores to Revco, which later was sold to CVS.[188]
Today, Kroger operates 2,252 pharmacies, most of which are located inside its supermarkets.[1] The Kroger Pharmacies continue as a profitable portion of the business and have been expanding to now include pharmacies in City Market, Dillons, Fred Meyer, Fry's, King Soopers, QFC, Ralphs, Harris Teeter, Smith's Food and Drug, and Kroger Supermarkets.[189]
Supermarket Petroleum Group[edit]
Since 1998, Kroger has added fuel centers in the parking lots of its supermarkets. More recently, the company has begun opening standalone fuel centers, often near stores whose parking lots could not accommodate a fuel center. As of Q2 2022, Kroger operated 1,629 supermarket fuel centers.[1][6]
In 2006, Kroger introduced a new common logo for all of its convenience store chains that is now also used at the fuel centers of all of its supermarket chains—a rhombus with a white, stylized image of the continental United States in the center bordered by four colored areas: dark blue representing the Pacific Ocean, red representing Canada, green representing the Atlantic Ocean, and yellow representing the Gulf of Mexico. This logo is also still used at the convenience stores that were sold to EG Group in 2018.
Kroger Personal Finance[edit]
Kroger Personal Finance was introduced in 2007 to offer branded Visa cards, mortgages, home equity loans, pet, renter's and home insurance, identity theft protection, and wireless services.[3] In 2017, MasterCard became the network for Kroger's newly branded 1-2-3 REWARDS credit card issued by U.S. Bank.[190] In 2019, Kroger banned the use of Visa credit cards (but not debit cards) at two of its subsidiary chains: Foods Co. Supermarkets and Smiths, citing rising costs from premium cards.[191]
Kroger Wireless[edit]
Kroger Wireless, formerly known as i-wireless,[192] is a national private label wireless service provider sold in over 2,200 retail locations within the Kroger family of stores across 31 states.[193] Kroger Wireless service functions over the nationwide Sprint network.[194] Customers can choose from "Unlimited" rate plans including unlimited talk/text and with data allotments up to and including unlimited data.[195] Kroger Wireless allows customers to purchase phones at select Kroger store locations,[196] via their website,[197] or by bringing their eligible Sprint device for activation.[198]
84.51°[edit]
84.51° is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kroger engaged in data science and consumer insights, created in April 2015, as a result of Kroger purchasing the remaining half of its then-joint venture Dunnhumby USA from Tesco.[199]