Safeway, Inc. is an American supermarket chain that provides grocery items and general merchandise along with various specialty departments such as bakery, delicatessen, floral, and pharmacy, as well as Starbucks coffee shops and vehicle fuel centers.[3] Safeway's primary base of operations is in the Western United States,[4] with some stores located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern Seaboard.
It is a subsidiary of Albertsons after being acquired by private equity investors led by Cerberus Capital Management in January 2015. The subsidiary is headquartered in Pleasanton, California.
History
Marion Barton Skaggs, who already had experience in the grocery business, moved to Portland, Oregon in 1921, and established four grocery stores. This chain of stores grew quickly, and Skaggs enlisted the help of his five brothers to grow the network of stores. By 1926, he had opened 428 stores bearing the family name in 10 states. He then almost doubled the size of his business that year when he merged his company with 322 Sam Seelig Company stores and incorporated as "Safeway, Inc." because he thought a corporate chain that would outlive him should not carry his name.[5][6][7][8]
Safeway was chosen as the name because the stores operated exclusively on a cash-and-carry basis; they did not offer credit to customers, as American grocers traditionally had done.[9] It was the "safe way" to buy food because a family could not get into debt via its grocery bill (as many families did at the time, a contributing cause of the Great Depression in the United States).[9] Thus, the original slogan was: "Drive the Safeway. Buy the Safeway".[9]
The 1926 merger came about because of Charles E. Merrill, the founder of the Merrill Lynch brokerage firm, who saw an opportunity to consolidate the West Coast grocery industry. Towards this end, he purchased the 322-store Safeway chain of W.R.H. Weldon, who wished to exit retailing and concentrate on wholesale. Then, in June 1926, Merrill offered Skaggs either $7 million outright or $1.5 million plus 30,000 shares in the merged firm. Skaggs took the latter.[10] On July 1, 1926, Safeway merged with the 673 stores from Skaggs United Stores of Idaho and Skaggs Cash Stores of California. On completion of the Skaggs/Safeway merger, M. B. Skaggs became the Chief Executive of the business.[11] Two years later, Skaggs listed Safeway on the New York Stock Exchange. In the 1930s, Safeway introduced produce pricing by the pound, adding "sell by" dates on perishables, nutritional labeling, and some of the first parking lots.
The merger instantly created the largest chain of grocery stores west of the Mississippi.[12] At the time of the merger, the company was headquartered in Reno, Nevada. In 1929, it was relocated to a former grocery warehouse in Oakland, California, where it had the exclusive zip code of 94660. Safeway headquarters remained there until they moved to their new offices across from Stoneridge Mall in Pleasanton, California, in 1996. In the 1930s, Charles E. Merrill temporarily left Merrill Lynch to help manage Safeway.
In the late 1930s, the New Negro Alliance boycotted the Sanitary Grocery Company (then a Safeway subsidiary) to pressure store owners to employ black people, especially in predominantly black neighborhoods. The Sanitary Grocery Company successfully sought an injunction against the New Negro Alliance, which was upheld by the Washington, D.C., Court of Appeals. This led to the 1938 landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision of New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Co., which defended the right to peaceful protest in the resolution of labor disputes.[13][14]
In 1969, the Black Panther Party and the United Farm Workers launched simultaneous boycotts of Safeway grocery stores, which were the largest grocery store chain in the U.S. West at that time.[15][16] The Panthers boycotted due to Safeway's refusal to donate to their Free Breakfast for Children Program, created to serve daily hot breakfasts to underprivileged children throughout the U.S.[15] The United Farm Workers boycotted Safeway because the chain continued to sell California grapes despite the union's nationwide boycott.[15] The Panthers and United Farm Workers also acted in solidarity with each other's goals in boycotting Safeway, including during a 1973 Panthers demonstration outside an Oakland Safeway store documented by KPIX Eyewitness news, in which protestors carried signs that read "Boycott Safeway, Boycott Grapes".[17]
Expansion
The initial public offering price of Safeway stock was $226 in 1927. A five for one split in 1928 brought the price down to under $50. Over the next few years, Charles Merrill, with financing supplied by Merrill Lynch, then began aggressively acquiring numerous regional grocery store chains for Safeway in a rollup strategy. Early acquisitions included significant parts of Piggly Wiggly chain as part of the breakup of that company by Merrill Lynch and Wall Street.
Most transactions involved the swap of stock certificates, with little cash changing hands. Most acquired chains retained their own names until the mid-1930s.
In 1929, there were rumors of a Safeway-Kroger merger.[18][19] In late 2022, 93 years later, this merger became another possibility with the announced merger of Albertsons Companies and Kroger Co.[20]
Private brands
In 2006, Safeway introduced an organically grown and processed line of products named "O Organics". The brand has proved successful, with yearly sales surpassing $1 billion in 2017.[73] Open Nature was launched in 2011,[74] and has also proved successful enough that Open Nature has absorbed some other previous private brands (Such as Bright Green, Signature Home, and Lucerne Plant-Based products).
After its acquisition by Albertsons, the combined company adopted Safeway's private label brand program, changed the name from "Safeway Select" to "Signature Select", and updated the branding and packaging for all of their products.
Grocery delivery
Safeway has offered online grocery delivery service in select markets starting in the American Northwest region in 2000.[39] The service grew to deliver in six states and the District of Columbia, mostly along the west and east coast.[75] Safeway has rapidly expanded the number of locations offering contactless curbside pickup (marketed as "DriveUp & Go"), and continues to offer traditional prescheduled delivery services along with on-demand deliveries filled via Instacart and DoorDash.[76]
In January 2021, Albertsons announced that it would be laying off union company-employed grocery delivery drivers at Safeway stores in the Northern California region, stating that they would be transferring those services to app-based delivery platforms, such as Instacart.[77] This decision only affected employees working in the 'traditional' scheduled delivery department inside the stores, and all employees were offered other positions within the company.
Past concepts
Safeway throughout the decades has ventured and experimented with different concepts and themes for its locations and stores.
In 1963, Safeway developed the Super S format – which combined a general merchandise and drug store and a new Safeway supermarket in the same building. The stores shared a common entrance, but operated as separate businesses with their own checkstands. The first outlet opened in Anchorage, Alaska. In 1965, 22 existing Super S stores were sold to Skaggs Drug Stores. Safeway sold the remaining stores in 1971.[78]
In 1964, Safeway opened a trial two-level International Store at 12th and F Street in Washington, D.C., with a conventional Safeway downstairs and a gourmet store on the upper floor. The Safeway International Store range included wild boar steaks, snow hare, suckling pig, and reindeer steaks.[79]
The company also made a number of attempts to repurpose older, smaller store sites, opening Food Barn, a discount grocery outlet, and Liquor Barn, a discount liquor outlet, in the 1970s. Safeway also trialed Town House in Washington, D.C., small stores targeting apartment dwellers, and a gourmet store concept, Bon Appetit in San Francisco and Tiburon, California.
In 1969, Safeway formed a joint venture with Holly Farms Poultry Industries (now part of
Logos
Safeway corporate information
Support offices
- California
- Pleasanton, California (Headquarters), Corporate Call Center, IT Support Services, Retail Pricing
- Colorado
- Denver, Colorado (Offices, Safeway Security, Trucking)
- Arizona
- Phoenix, Arizona (Offices, Accounting Offices, IT)
- Maryland
- Lanham, Maryland (Eastern US Headquarters)
Store music and intercom announcements
Safeway music is provided by Stingray Advertising. The network beams commercials and advertisements for Safeway products and services that play intermittently with the music.[83]
See also
- List of supermarket chains in the United States
- Safeway (Australia)—Sold to Woolworths Limited Australia in 1985. All locations renamed to Woolworths Supermarkets from 2008 to 2017.
- Safeway (Canada)—Sold to Sobeys in 2013. Continues to use the Safeway banner.
- Safeway (UK)—Sold to Argyll Foods in 1987. Continued to use the Safeway name until 2005, after they were acquired by Morrisons in 2004.