Kroger

Kroger distributes and merchandises food, pharmacy, health and personal care items, seasonal merchandise, and related products and services. Kroger is a grocery retailer based in Cincinnati, Ohio. 

The Kroger Co. spans many states with store formats that include grocery and multi-department stores, convenience stores, and mall jewellery stores. They operate under nearly two dozen banners, all of which share the same belief in building strong local ties and brand loyalty with their customers.

1883: Barney Kroger used his life savings to open his first grocery store in downtown Cincinnati. Kroger was founded in 1883 by a grocery store employee named Barney Kroger. The business principles that made the first Kroger store successful that same year; service, selection, value, and a belief that people are what matter most–continue to guide our company’s operations today.

1884: Kroger opened its second store.

1885: Kroger, a former coffee-and-tea salesman, soon bought out Branagan’s interest, He had a chain of four groceries. At 20, he managed a Cincinnati grocery store, and at 24, he became the sole owner of the Great Western Tea Company, which by the summer had four stores.

1901: Barney knew it would be simpler and more convenient if they could buy everything at one stop from one store. Kroger became the first grocer in the country to establish its own bakeries, followed by the integration of the meat department.

1902: The Kroger Grocery and Baking Company had been incorporated.

1912: Kroger made its first long-distance expansion, buying 25 stores in St Louis, Missouri.

1913: Kroger also followed this policy and began delivering its groceries with Model T trucks instead of with horse-drawn wagons.

1916: The company introduced another innovation with the beginning of self-service shopping. Kroger company began self-service shopping.

1920: The company had begun a process of rapid expansion beyond the Cincinnati area. A long period of government corruption was followed by one reform and civic rejuvenation this year as well. The Cincinnati Opera, founded in 1920, is the second oldest opera company in the country. The Kroger Grocery and Baking Company soon began to expand outside of Cincinnati; the chain had stores in Hamilton, Dayton, and Columbus, Ohio.

1927: Steady expansion gave this company a system of 3,749 retail units integrated with manufacturing and wholesaling divisions. The National Chain Stores Association was founded and William Albers was elected president.

1928: Kroger sold his shares and retired from the business. Early this year, a change in management and control led to a change in the method of the expansion-the old policy of opening new stores being replaced by one of acquiring other chains.

1929: Kroger became a very prosperous company and, had opened 5,575 stores.

1930: Morrill also began the Kroger Food Foundation, making it the first grocery company to test food scientifically in order to monitor the quality of products. One of the company's southern managers, Michael Cullen, proposed a revolutionary plan to his superiors: a bigger self-service grocery store that would make a profit by selling large quantities of food at low prices that competitors could not beat.

1936: Since its founding, this year, JM has played a significant role in shaping the content and boundaries of the marketing discipline.

1947: Kroger opened its first egg-processing plant in Wabash, Indiana, in order to further ensure egg quality.

1950: Annual sales had grown to more than one billion dollars.

1952: Kroger sales topped $1 billion.

1955: At the beginning of the year, Kroger began acquiring supermarket chains, and expanding into new markets.

1956: In January, the company bought out Big Chain Stores, Inc., a chain of seven stores based in Shreveport, Louisiana, later combining it with the Child's group.

1957: During all the acquisitions, in September, Kroger sold off its Wichita, Kansas, store division, then consisting of 16 stores, to J. S. Dillon and Sons Stores Company, then headed by Ray S. Dillon, son of the company founder.

1960: The company began its expansion into the drugstore business, with an eye on the potential for drugstores built next to grocery stores.

1961: The first SupeRx drugstore opened, next to a Kroger food store in Milford, Ohio.

1963: In October, Kroger acquired the 56-store chain Market Basket, providing them with a foothold in the lucrative southern California market. (Prior to this time Kroger had no stores west of Kansas). Kroger's sales reached $2 billion.

1964: Jacob Davis, a former congressman and judge and vice-president of Kroger, replaced Hall as president and CEO. Davis concentrated on the manufacturing branch of Kroger.

1965: Sara Miller McCune founded SAGE Publishing to support the dissemination of usable knowledge and educate a global community.

1966: All of these chains adopted the Kroger banner this year.

1967: During hearings for the 1967 Meat Inspection Act, several chains were exposed for selling adulterated processed meats.

1970: James Herring became president of The Kroger Company and began to take Kroger into the superstore age, closing hundreds of small supermarkets and building much larger ones with more speciality departments. Kroger exited the Chicago market selling its distribution warehouse in Northlake, Il. and 24 stores to the Dominick's Finer Foods grocery chain.

1972: Kroger built an ultra-modern dairy plant (Crossroad Farms Dairy) in Indianapolis, which was then considered the largest dairy plant in the world. Kroger exited Milwaukee, selling a few stores to Jewel. Kroger became the first grocery retailer in America to test an electronic scanner.

1978: Lyle Everingham, who began his career as a Kroger clerk, became CEO. The company sold Top Value Enterprises and opened Tara Foods, a peanut butter processing plant, in Albany, Georgia.

1979: Kroger became the second-largest supermarket chain in the United States.

1980: Sales had grown to ten billion dollars a year. Several other Michigan stores were sold to another Flint-based chain, Hamady Brothers.

1981: Kroger began marketing its Cost Cutter brand products.

1982: Kroger sold the 65-store Market Basket chain it had operated for several years in southern California.

1983: 100 years after our company’s founding, Kroger merged with Dillon Companies Inc. in Kansas to become a coast-to-coast operator of food, drug and convenience stores.

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.

1986: Kroger opened and had about 50 stores in St Louis until it left the market that year, saying that its stores were unprofitable.

1987: However, Kroger reduced its involvement in stand-alone drug stores when it sold most of its interest in the Hook and SupeRx chains.

1988: Less than three months after BI-LO pulled out, that company decided to re-enter the Charlotte market, and, Kroger announced it was pulling out of the Charlotte market and putting its stores up for sale. The company preserved its independence by fending off a leveraged buyout bid by the Kohlberg Kravis Roberts investment firm. Kroger received several takeover bids, mainly from the Dart Group Corporation and from Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, whose highest bid topped $5 billion.

1989: Boys Markets was acquired by the Yucaipa Companies.

1990: Kroger did, however, purchase 29 Great Scott! supermarkets in Michigan and add them to the Kroger chain. Under the leadership of Joseph A. Pilcher, who became CEO this year, Kroger adopted a strategy of protecting market share at all costs, including sacrificing margins for the more important cash flow needed to pay off the debt.

1991: When faced with increased competition in a particular market--for example when Food Lion, Inc. expanded into Texas, Kroger would simply lower prices and accept the resulting reduced margins.

1992: In addition to the increasing competitive pressures, Kroger's sales and earnings were affected by a ten-week strike in Michigan and another work stoppage in Tennessee.

1993: On June 15, the company announced the closure of its 15 area stores.

1994: Many of these stores were sold to the local grocery chain Red Food, which was in turn bought by BI-LO. By this year more than one-quarter of Kroger's sales base competed directly with a supercenter. Kroger's debt load had been reduced significantly, to $3.89 billion. The company spent $534 million on the expansion, which included 45 new stores, 17 expanded stores, 66 remodellings, and the acquisition of 20 stores.

1995: To free up additional money for the program and further reduce the company debt, Kroger sold Time Saver Stores, a division of Dillon which included 116 convenience stores in the New Orleans area, to E-Z Serve Convenience Stores, Inc. of Houston, Texas.

1998: Kroger merged with the then fifth-largest grocery company Fred Meyer, along with its subsidiaries, Ralphs, QFC, and Smith's.

1999: Kroger bought most of these stores back and began reverting them. Kroger also swapped all ten of its Greensboro, North Carolina-area stores to Matthews, North Carolina-based Harris Teeter, for 11 of that company's stores in central and western Virginia.

2000: The Hannaford locations in these markets were purchased from Delhaize by Kroger as a condition of Delhaize's acquisition of the Hannaford chain, which had previously competed against Food Lion, also owned by Delhaize.

2001: The company's prosperity continued, and it claimed a new sales record of $50 billion dollars. Kroger acquired Baker's Supermarkets from Fleming Companies, Inc.

2002: A store in Wilson opened but closed two years later.

2004: Kroger bought most of the old Thriftway stores in Cincinnati, Ohio, when Winn-Dixie left the area. The brand was introduced in the Columbus, Ohio, area, which lost the Big Bear and Big Bear Plus chains in Penn Traffic's Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

2005: The company began renovating many Kroger Food & Drug stores in Ohio for an expanded and remodelled look, converting them to the Kroger Marketplace format.

2006: On October 5, a new Kroger Marketplace opened in Gahanna. The move had been in the planning stages, as it was planning to expand there but withdrew after it had already submitted registration.

2007: Two more stores were planned, one in Middletown (which opened in April, after the old store was razed and made part of the current parking lot) and one in Englewood. Kroger acquired Scott's Food & Pharmacy from SuperValu Inc., and in the same year, also acquired 20 former Michigan Farmer Jack locations from A&P when A&P exited the Michigan Market. Kroger Personal Finance was introduced this year to offer branded Visa cards, mortgages, home equity loans, pet, renter's and home insurance, identity theft protection, and wireless services.

2008: Two more stores opened in the Cincinnati area, in the Northern Kentucky suburbs of Hebron and Walton which were completed in November. Kroger began a partnership with Murray's Cheese in New York City.

2009: The second Kroger Marketplace store in Rosenberg, Texas, opened on December 4.

2010: A Mount Orab, Ohio, store opened in the spring.

2011: In the Raleigh-Durham area, Kroger closed its North Raleigh store in the Wakefield Commons shopping centre on July 9, because the location failed to meet sales expectations. The fourth, in Willis, Texas, opened on August 11. The Elder-Beerman in Centerville, Ohio was demolished, and a new marketplace has been built in its place.

2012: A second Kroger Marketplace opened on October 4, from a rebuilt Scott's Food and Pharmacy in the Village at Coventry on the southwest side of Fort Wayne. Simple Truth is Kroger's flagship natural and organic brand and has grown quickly since its launch, this year. 

2013: The company announced in April that full-time employees would maintain their health insurance benefits. Another Marketplace opened in Virginia Beach, Virginia, at the site of a former Super Kmart, on July 31. On July 9, Kroger announced its acquisition of (the 212 stores of Charlotte-based) Harris Teeter in a deal valued at $2.5 billion and that it will assume $100 million in the company's outstanding debt. Kroger announced that the spouses of the company's unionized workers would no longer be covered by the company's insurance plan.

2014: A fourth location opened on October 15, in Portsmouth, Virginia, at the site of the former I.C. Norcom High School.

2015: On March 3, Kroger announced it will enter Hawaii, having registered with the state as a new business in February. 84.51° is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kroger engaged in data science and consumer insights, created in April, as a result of Kroger purchasing the remaining half of its then-joint venture Dunnhumby USA from Tesco. 145,000-square-foot Marketplace was opened in the Cincinnati suburb of Oakley.

2016: In April, Kroger announced that it had made a "meaningful investment" in the Boulder, Colorado-based Lucky's Market, an organic foods supermarket chain that operated 17 stores in 13 states throughout the Midwest and Southeast United States. The first Kroger Marketplace in Mississippi opened on September 16, in Hernando (a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee) to much fanfare.

2017: On February 7, it was announced that Kroger Co. had purchased Murray's Cheese. On June 1, Kroger opened their second Fresh Eats. Today, there are 2,778 Kroger or Kroger-affiliated markets in America, with revenues of a whopping $122.7 billion.

2018: Kroger announced plans to hire an estimated 11,000 new employees. On May 24, Kroger announced they were acquiring Home Chef for $200 million with an additional $500 million in incentives if certain targets are met by Home Chef. In June, Kroger announced testing driverless cars for delivering groceries. In October, Kroger announced online wine delivery to 14 states in partnership with DRINKS. Customers can select assorted wines in 6-bottle or 12-bottle packs. On December 4, Kroger announced a deal to sell food inside the drugstore Walgreens. Construction of the new 123,000-square-foot store began this year.

2019: In March, Kroger announced it was expanding its service with a robotics company, Nuro to Houston, Texas with Nuro's autonomous Priuses. In August, Kroger began charging customers between $0.50 and $3.50 for receiving cash back while making purchases with debit cards. In November, Kroger unveiled an updated logo for their stores and company, with the '"Fresh For Everyone" tagline and the "Krojis". The company also announced an expansion of its online wine delivery program into Arizona. United States' largest supermarket by revenue ($121.16 billion for this fiscal year), and the second-largest general retailer (behind Walmart). Kroger is also the fifth-largest retailer in the world and the fourth-largest American-owned private employer in the United States.

2020: Kroger's shares traded at over $32 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at US$25.9 billion in April.

2021: On August 2, Kroger announced that it had elected Elaine Chao, formerly Secretary of Labor under President George W. Bush and Secretary of Transportation under President Donald Trump, to its board of directors. In September, Kroger tweaked its logo to add the "Fresh Cart" symbol. In October, Kroger announced an expansion into South Florida with its online delivery service, 'Kroger Delivery'. To do this, Kroger will build two new automated fulfilment centres assisted and facilitated by the UK-based technology company Ocado Group. The company was reported to have been breached by a third-party hack which compromised the pharmacy records of Kroger-owned Fred Meyer and QFC stores' customers. The company launched its online delivery services in Central Florida earlier this year.

“To provide products, services and solutions of the highest quality and deliver more value to our customers that earns their respect and loyalty.”

“To be a leader in the distribution and merchandising of food, pharmacy, health and personal care items, seasonal merchandise, and related products and services.”