🠈 C&S Wholesale Grocers 🠊
C&S Wholesale Grocers
C&S Wholesale Grocers is a primary food distributor for grocery stores throughout the nation.
More importantly, they are the current owner of the Piggly Wiggly brand which is a grocery store franchise.
- 1918: Israel Cohen and Abraham Siegel founded the company in Worcester, Massachusetts.
- 1929: Their warehouse flooded and they moved to a bigger one.
- 2001: CS acquired the Grand Union supermarket chain which had gone bankrupt.
- 2012: CS sold Grand Union to Tops Market.
- 1958: CS started the Big D supermarket in in Worcester.
- 2003: C&S acquired most assets of Fleming Foods after its bankruptcy.
Fleming Foods
Fleming Foods was a distributing company that distributed to over 3,500 grocery stores. Fleming often ended up owning and selling grocery chains and brands.
- 1915: O. A. Fleming, Gene Wilson and Samuel Lux founded Lux Mercantile.
- 1941: Company name changed to The Fleming Company.
- 1959: Fleming held its IPO.
- 1978: Fleming acquired Benson Wholesale of Geneva, Alabama which owned the Piggly Wiggly.
History of Piggly Wiggly
Piggly Wiggly is a grocery store franchise by C&S Wholesale with about 600 locations. The company was founded in 1914 and innovated the self serve grocery concept. The Pink Palace is a museum that was started by Saunders and is now owned by Memphis.
- 1916: Clarence Saunders opened the Piggly Wiggly self service grocery store. He patent the self service system which he franchised.
- 1922: Piggly was listed on the NYSE.
- 1923: Merrill Lynch and others orchestrated a bear raid on Piggly. Saunders tried to retaliate with a short squeeze. He ran out of credit and lost control of the store.
- 1932: The chain hit its peak at 2,660 stores.
- 1984: Fleming moved its headquarters to Oklahoma City.
- 1994: Fleming formed Fleming Supermarkets of Florida, Inc. to hold Hyde Park Markets and Wooley's Fine Foods. They sold this 11 store chain in 2000.
- 2000: Fleming moved its headquarters to Lewisville, Texas
- 2003: SEC claims Fleming overstated its earnings (SEC Report)
- 2002: Fleming acquired Core-Mark
History of Core-Mark
Core-Mark Holding Company is a distributor of fresh and chilled foods based in South San Francisco that trades on the NASDAQ with the symbol CORE.
- 1888: The Glaser brothers founded the company.
- 1974: David Gillespie acquired the firm.
- 19??: Core-Mark was listed on the Toronto Exchange.
- 2002: Fleming acquired Core-Mark.
- 2003: Core-Mark emerged as a separate company after the Fleming bankruptcy.
- 2005: Core-Mark held an IPO with the symbol CORE. Core-Mark
- 2003: Fleming declared chapter 11.
References:
- Wikipedia - Fleming Foods (Drawn 9/17/2018)
- Wikipedia - C&S Wholesale Grocers (Drawn 9/17/2018)