Officials Hail Giant Food's Return to Local Roots

Giant-Landover could once again be a giant in Landover.

The Ahold Delhaize USA brand will reestablish a headquarters location in Landover, Md., according to Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker, III.

The change comes as a part of Ahold Delhaize’s decentralized or “brand-centric” structure, which was newly adopted as a result of the Ahold and Delhaize merger. Ahold had previously outsourced many of Giant’s functions from Landover to the offices of its sister brands, Stop & Shop in Quincy, Mass., and Giant Food Stores in Carlisle, Pa., known as Giant-Carlisle.

Ahold Delhaize’s new structure puts local merchandising and promotion decisions with its local brands, while centralized functions such as accounting, human resources and other shared services are run centrally from Carlisle.

In support of Giant-Landover’s local functions, the company will add 220 jobs, including 78 new hires, said Baker. The regional division is currently remodeling the same building it has occupied for many years to accommodate the new associates.

“On behalf of the residents and business community of Prince George’s County, I want to welcome back Giant Food to their home and newly renovated headquarters in Landover,” Baker said in a statement. “When Giant Food moved their headquarters out of Prince George’s County to Pennsylvania following their 1998 merger with sister company Giant Martin’s, our county was disappointed yet resilient and vigilant for them to someday return to Landover.”

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Giant was founded as a single store in Washington, D.C., in 1936 and has since grown to the Washington-Baltimore region’s largest traditional grocer. Ahold acquired Giant in 1998. In 2006, more than 600 jobs in Landover were consolidated in Quincy as part of Landover’s integration with the Stop & Shop chain.