🠈 United Natural Foods 🠊
United Natural Foods
United Natural Foods is a natural food distribution company based in Providence, Rhode Island that trades on the NASDAQ with the symbol UNFI.
The company was known for distributing food to Whole Foods. They entered the retail business in a big way with the 2018 purchase of SuperValu
- 1976: Mountain People's Warehouse was formed to distribute food in the Western US.
- 1977: Cornucopia Natural Foods was founded delivering natural food in the Eastern US.
- 1996: Mountain and Cornucopia merged to create United Natural Foods
- 2007: UNFI acquired Millbrook Distribution Services from Distribution Holdings Inc. for $300M.
- 2016: UNFI acquired Nor-Cal produce, Inc.
- 2016: UNFI acquired Haddon House Food Products, Inc..
- 2016: UNFI acquired Gourmet Guru.
- 2018, UNFI announced acquisition of wholesaler SuperValu which also owns several grocery chains for 1.3 billion plus assumption of $1.6 billion in debts.
History of SuperValu
SuperValu is a food distributor that claims to serve about 3,000 stores. They also own several small collections of stores. They occasionally show up in the merger chain of other large grocers.
Brands in the SuperValu family include: , , which has store in Illinois and Missouri and Shoppers which has store in Maryland and Virginia.
- 1926: Investors from B.S. Bull and Company, which as formed in 1870, created Winston and Newell Company which then acquired the remaining assets of BS Bull.
- 1928: Winston became a charter member of Independent Grocers Alliance.
- 1941: Winston left IGA to create a virtual chain of stores under the SuperValu and U-Save brands.
- 1967: company was listed on the NYSE.
- 1963: SuperValu acquired Food Marketing Corporation of Fort Wayne, Indiana which was started as Bursley & Company in the 1800s.
- 1971: SuperValu acquired ShopKo.
- 1975: SuperValu acquired Hornbacher's
History of Hornbacher's
Hornbacher's which has eight stores in Minnesota and North Dakota.
- 1951, Ted Hornbacher and Jim Custer opened their first store Moorhead, ND.
- 1980: SuperValu acquired Minnesota-based Cub Foods
History of Cub Foods
Cub Foods has 73 stores in Minnesota< and Illinois
- 1991: SuperValu acquired Scott's Food and Pharmacy of Fort Wayne, In. It was started by Donald G. Scott in 1954.
- 1992: SuperValu spun off ShopKo in an IPO.
- 1992: SuperValu acquired Wetterau, Inc. which owned Shop 'n Save and Save-A-Lot for $1.1 billion
History of Wetterau
- 1867: A German Immigrant George H. Wetterau and J. F. Lauman set up a grocery wholesale company.
- Frederick Goebel joined after Lauman's retirement to create the Goebel & Wetterau Grocery Company.
- 1899: the company incorporated as the G. H. Wetterau & Sons Grocery Company.
- 1928: The company expanded to Mexico.
- 1936: the company changed its name to Wetterau Grocery Company.
- 1938: Wetterlau acquired Niese & Coast Products Company based in St. Louis.
- 1961: Wetterlau went public selling 100,000 shares of stock and changing its name to Wetterau Foods Incorporated.
- 1973: Wetterau shortened its name to Wetterau Incorporated.
- 1973: Wetterau acquired J. Zinmeister Company of Kentucky, which supplied 80 IGA stores.
- 1976: Wetterau began acquiring small stores.
- 1980: Wetterau acquired a distributor called Milliken, Tomlinson Company which had a 145,000-square-foot distribution center.
- 1980: Wetterau acquired Fox Grocery Company which supplied 300 retailers in six states,
- 1981: Empire Inc. attempted a hostile take-over of Wetterau.
- 1982: Wetterau acquired Shop 'n Save
History of Shop 'n Save
Shop 'n Save is a SuperValu brand with 39 stores in Missouri and Illinois. They license the name to stores in Pa, Oh, Md, WV and Va.
- 1979: Shop 'n Save was founded in Belleville, Illinois.
- 1983: Wetterau acquired Laneco, Inc. of Pennsylvania which had 31 stores.
- 1984: Wetterau acquired Milgram Food Stores, Inc.. They sold the company's 36 retail stores but kept the warehouses.
- 1984: Wetterau formed a joint venture with Kroger called Foodland Distributors.
- 1985: Wetterau Creasy Company Inc. a supplier on the East Coast for $280 million.
- 1985: Wetterau acquired Cressey Dockham & Company which was a wholesaler to 300 retailers in New England for $250 million.
- 1985: Wetterau acquired Amerimark Inc. which owned convenience stores and distribution network.
- 1987 Wetterau acquired USCP-WESCO Inc. which was a distribution company on the West Coast.
- 1988: Wetterlau acquired the Moran Group which owned Save-A-Lot and Roger Williams Foods.
- 1988: Wetterlau was listed on the Standard & Poor's 500 Index
- 2002: SuperValu acquired 45 store chain Deal$: Nothing Over a Dollar.
- 2006: Dollar Tree, Inc. acquired 138 Deal$ stores from SuperValu.
- 2007: SuperValu sold Scott's Food, which had 18 stores to Kroger for $33 million.
- 2006: In a $17.4 billion deal involving Cerberus and CVS, Supervalu acquired Albertsons.
References:
- Wikipedia - SuperValu (Drawn 9/19/2018)
- New Hope - UNFI to Acquire Millbrook (Drawn 9/19/2018)
- Funding Universe - Wetterau (Drawn 9/20/2018)
Directory Listings:
- Internet Rivers - Food Distributors: United Natural Foods