The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company, known as Stop & Shop, is an American regional chain of supermarkets located in the northeastern United States. From its beginnings in 1892 as a small grocery store, it has grown to include a 365-store chain.
Stop & Shop has been a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dutch supermarket operator Ahold since 1995 and was part of the Stop & Shop/Giant-Landover division with sister chain Giant-Landover between 2004 and 2011. Ahold announced on June 24, 2015, that it would merge with Brussels-based Delhaize Group, a Belgian grocery store conglomerate whose U.S. grocery operations included Hannaford of Scarborough, Maine and Food Lion of Salisbury, North Carolina. The merger was completed on July 24, 2016, with the new holding company being named Ahold Delhaize, and it is now a sister company to the formerly competing New England supermarket chain Hannaford, along with Food Lion.
History Beginning Stop & Shop's roots can be traced back to 1892, when Solomon and Jeanie Rabinowitz opened a grocery shop, called the Greenie Store, at 134 Salem Street, in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts. This store operated at this location until 1908. According to the company's web site, Stop & Shop was founded in 1914 in Somerville, Massachusetts, by the Rabinowitz family as the Economy Grocery Stores Company. Four years later, the store adopted the new self-service supermarket model recently pioneered by Piggly Wiggly. A second store opened later in 1914, several stores opened a year later and by 1917, the chain had 15 stores. Initially, the stores sold only grocery items, but soon after added meats, produce, milk, dairy, and some frozen foods. Like A & P, they were pioneers of the modern grocery store, selling all types of food items under one roof. Stores were and in downtown and inner city areas in the Boston and Springfield metro areas. The chain had grown to 86 supermarkets by 1946, when the name was changed to Stop & Shop, Inc.
Pre-1980s In 1959, Stop & Shop had 100 stores by opening in Natick, Massachusetts. In 1961, Stop & Shop bought the now-defunct department store chain Bradlees, based in Connecticut. Later, in the 60s, they bought the three-store chain ORBIT'S stores and merged them into Bradlees. Stop & Shop stores in Massachusetts were opening in suburban areas and in shopping plazas. In the early 1950s, Stop & Shop entered Connecticut and Rhode Island, in the early 1960s in New York, and in the late 1960s in New Jersey. With Bradlees in the company, Stop & Shop began offering non-food items in their supermarkets. In many areas, Stop & Shop and Bradlees were adjacent, allowing one-stop shopping; several of these combination stores were designated Family Centers. Stop & Shop also operated the Medi-Mart pharmacy chain and the Perkins Tobacco chain.
1980s In 1980, Stop & Shop had supermarkets in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and southern New York. The stores were then typical in size at about on average. Many were next door to their then-co-owned Bradlees Department stores. In the New York and Philadelphia metro areas, Stop & Shop was not able to compete successfully. In 1982, Stop & Shop exited New Jersey, selling most of the stores that were profitable to A&P, which would use these stores to replace their aging fleet of stores. A few stores were sold to ShopRite owners as well as Foodtown owners. Other stores were closed and converted to other uses. In New York State, they sold some of their stores to A&P while selling others to Grand Union and closing others, converting them also to other uses.
In 1982, Stop & Shop built its first superstore in the Pembroke, Massachusetts, area. Superstores were . In addition to traditional supermarket offerings, these stores featured bakeries, pharmacies, moderate selections of general merchandise one would not expect to find at a supermarket, expanded deli departments, cafes, and a salad bar. Some of these stores would feature a bank, expanded liquor and beer, video rentals, etc. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, the traditional supermarkets were converted into superstores. Some were remodeled, others were torn down, and a new store was rebuilt in the same location, while others were closed and replaced with a superstore within two miles.
In early 1985, Stop & Shop bought the small discount store chain Almy's. The remaining Almy's locations closed in 1987.
In the late 1980s, following a hostile takeover bid by Herbert Haft's Dart Group, The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company was acquired by leveraged buyout specialists KKR and was taken private. Shortly thereafter, Medi-Mart was sold to Walgreens; Bradlees was spun off as its own corporation. After several years, while KKR explored merger possibilities with Safeway (which it also controlled at the time), Stop & Shop was sold in a public offering.
By 1990, Stop & Shop operated in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and in Boston and Springfield, Massachusetts, with one store in New York state.
1990s
In 1994, Giant-Landover began expanding by opening stores in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey under the Super G trade name. This was done to differentiate itself from its future sister company, Giant Food Stores of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. During 2005, the newly formed Stop & Shop/Giant made the decision to phase out the Super G name in New Jersey and Delaware. In New Jersey, four Super G stores were shuttered, and the remaining eight stores were converted to the Super Stop & Shop banner and became a part of Stop & Shop's New York Sales Division in an attempt to revive sales at the stores. These stores continued to underperform and were subsequently sold in 2007 to ShopRite franchise owners. The Delaware Super G stores were to be remodeled under the Super Stop & Shop format and reopened under the Super Giant banner. Super G stores in Pennsylvania were generally close to Giant-Carlisle locations and were converted to Giant of Carlisle stores but continued to be unionized, unlike most of the other Carlisle-bannered stores.
In 1995, Stop & Shop acquired competitor Purity Supreme supermarkets. Then in 1996 Stop & Shop was bought out by Ahold USA. Ahold had previously bought First National Supermarkets, whose Edwards Super Food Stores and Finast chains also had a strong presence in Connecticut; Ahold planned to operate both Edwards and Stop & Shop there. However, in the wake of the acquisition, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal raised antitrust questions, as Stop & Shop and Edwards combined had more than half of the grocery share in Connecticut. Following negotiations with Blumenthal, Ahold decided to convert its New England stores to the Stop & Shop banner, while selling some locations to other chains such as Shaw's, ShopRite, and Grand Union. Ahold also began building a few stores under the Edwards Super Food Stores banner in New York and New Jersey. Ahold also acquired 26 independent Mayfair Foodtown stores in that area, converting them to Edwards. In 1998 and 1999, several Super Stop & Shop stores were built in the Poughkeepsie area.
In 1999, Ahold and the New Jersey-based Pathmark entered merger talks, and a deal was struck under which Ahold would acquire Pathmark and rebrand Edwards and its Carlisle, Pennsylvania-based sibling Giant under its banner. After the government rejected the deal due to their belief that Ahold would hold too large a stake in the grocery store market in the New York and Pennsylvania areas, Ahold eventually pulled out because they were not willing to make a series of divestments necessary for approval.
2000s In 2000, Ahold decided again to try to rebrand the Edwards stores and eventually decided to bring the Stop & Shop chain back to the New York area. By the end of 2000 the rebranding was complete and the Edwards name was discontinued.
In 2001, Ahold made moves to expand the Stop & Shop brand further into New Jersey and New York; these came as Grand Union, one of its competitors, was going through a bankruptcy liquidation. Through a series of moves, C&S Wholesale Grocers acquired the Grand Union chain of stores and downsized it significantly, selling many of its New Jersey and New York area stores to Ahold. Ahold in turn started supplying these stores with merchandise but did not immediately rebrand their acquisitions to Stop & Shop; that would happen in the spring and summer of 2001. Stop & Shop also began testing full-service Dunkin' Donuts storefronts within their supermarkets, starting with locations in Mansfield, Quincy and Dedham. They officially began a strategic alliance the following year, with 70 locations throughout New England adding a Dunkin' Donuts.
In 2003, Ahold acquired many of the A&P Foodmart locations in the Hartford, Connecticut area, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and the one remaining New Hampshire store. Other A&P locations in that region closed or were sold to other supermarket chains. In 2004, Ahold integrated Stop & Shop Supermarkets with Giant Food and created one combined company with the name of Stop & Shop/Giant-Landover.
In 2006, Stop & Shop signed a contract with Starbucks, placing the coffee shop chain's licensed stores inside certain supermarkets. They planned to replace most, if not all, Dunkin' Donuts locations. Also in May 2006, Stop & Shop began piloting the Shopping Buddy program in select stores in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The Shopping Buddy is a personal shopping assistant that allows customers to track their purchases and to do in-cart bagging as they move through the store.
In 2007, Stop & Shop made an attempt to expand further into northern New England. They built, but did not operate, a single Vermont store in Rutland before selling it to rival supermarket operator Delhaize. Delhaize opened the store under its Hannaford banner in February 2008.
In July 2007, Stop & Shop announced that it would close nine underperforming stores in southern New Jersey, effective the following month, marking its exit from the southern New Jersey market; the company also closed its Middletown, New York location. The affected stores were sold to the retailers’ cooperative Wakefern Food Corporation, which subsequently transferred them to independent operators who reopened them under the ShopRite banner. That same month, Stop & Shop opened a single Maine store in Kennebunk. The store was closed in October 2009, citing slow sales as the primary reason. At the same time, they abandoned plans to build a second Maine store in Portland. Delhaize purchased the vacant Kennebunk location in December 2009 and later reopened the property under the Hannaford banner.
In October 2007, Stop & Shop launched an advertising campaign that was intended to have users submit stories and videos to a website detailing their grocery store experiences. The campaign was significant in that it is an early example of a regional traditional brand employing Web 2.0 concepts such as user-generated content to promote their stores.
On August 22, 2008, Stop & Shop changed its logo as a re-branding project along with its sister company, Giant-Landover. In August 2009, Stop & Shop announced closures and re-brandings for a large portion of the licensed Starbucks stores opened in 2006.
2010s
By late 2013, Stop & Shop had a very strong base in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, with more stores in New York and New Jersey. All six of the remaining New Hampshire stores had closed in August 2013, marking the chain's departure from northern New England. A few Connecticut stores, in Bridgeport, Hamden, and Orange, also closed during the two subsequent years.