FOUNDERS OF TOP 10 FOOD RETAIL COMPANIES

Companies listed in order of annual volume in SN's Top 75 Company list from January 2002

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1) Wal-Mart Supercenters

Bentonville, Ark.

1962

Sam Walton

Wal-Mart, the supercenter superstar of food retailing, opened its first store in Rogers, Ark., in 1962. Four decades later Wal-Mart has become the No. 1 food retailer with food sales estimated at $65.3 billion last year.

2) Kroger Co.

Cincinnati

1883

Barney Kroger

Kroger was established before the modern supermarket. However, the chain would be the first store to sell meat and groceries under the same roof when it purchased 14 meat markets in 1904. Last year Kroger sales topped $50 billion.

3) Albertsons

Boise, Idaho

1939

Joe Albertson

Profitable from the beginning, by the end of its first year of operation Albertsons' sales totaled $170,000 (just over $2 million if earned today) with a net profit of $10,000. Last year sales for the company were almost $38 billion.

4) Safeway

Pleasanton, Calif.

1926

M.B. Skaggs

M.B. Skaggs in 1915 purchased a single grocery store from his father in American Falls, Idaho. By 1926 he was operating 428 stores and merged with Safeway stores. Last year company's sales were $34.3 billion.

5) Ahold USA

Chantilly, Va.

1887

Albert Heijn

Ahold USA's parent company was founded over a century ago with one small, family-run grocery store outside the Dutch town of Zaandam. Today it has come literally worlds away from that first store, with annualized global sales of about $60 billion.

6) Supervalu

Minneapolis

1870

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Supervalu's roots start with predecessors B.S. Bull, Newel & Harrison, wholesale grocers who sold produce in Minneapolis. In 1954 the company changed its name to Super Valu Stores. Today it's a Fortune 100 company pulling in over $20 billion in sales.

7) Costco Wholesale Corp.

Issaquah, Wash.

1983

James Sinegal

James Sinegal left Sol Price's innovatively formatted Price Club in 1983 to found his own store. Sinegal's Costco acquired Price Club in 1993. Today Costco dominates the field with over $20 billion in sales in 2001, and over 36 million members .

8) Fleming

Dallas

1906

O.A. Fleming; Carl and Ike Vernon

Fleming, initially Lux Mercantile Co., got its start in 1915 selling products to grocery stores. The company took the name Fleming in 1941. Today the wholesaler is ranked among the top 10 U.S. grocery companies with $15.6 billion in sales in 2001.

9) Publix Super Markets

Lakeland, Fla.

1930

George Jenkins

George Jenkins founded his first store in Winter Haven, Fla., in the 1930s with annual sales of around $100,000 (close to $1 million in today's terms). Publix has since grown into a Fortune 500 company with estimated sales of over $15 billion.

10) Delhaize

Belgium

1867

Jules Delhaize

Jules Delhaize, his brother and brother-in-law founded Delhaize in Belgium in 1957. It expanded to the U.S. in the mid-1970s with the Food Town purchase (Food Lion). In 2001, the company's U.S. subsidiary generated $14.9 billion in sales.