Grand Union (supermarket)

type

Private

industry

Retail Grocery

fate

The original company was purchased by C&S Wholesale Grocers in 2001 and downsized. The remainder of the company was purchased by Tops Markets in 2012 and folded into the Tops brand in 2013. After Tops and Price Chopper merged operations, C&S purchased some of the stores the companies had to divest and relaunched Grand Union.

foundation

Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S. (1872, as Jones Brothers Tea Company) (Original), November 9, 2021 (Revival)

defunct

July 2, 2013 (Original)

founder

Cyrus D. Jones

location city

Scranton, Pennsylvania (original) 68 Jay Street, Brooklyn, New York (??–1951??) Elmwood Park, New Jersey (1951–1987) Wayne, New Jersey (1987–2001) Clifton Park, New York (2001–2013) Depew, New York (from time of acquisition by Tops)

locations

5 (2026)

homepage

grandunion.com

Grand Union Supermarkets, later known as Grand Union Family Markets and often referred to simply as Grand Union,[1] is an American chain of grocery stores that does business in upstate New York and Vermont, and used to do business throughout most of the northeastern United States. It operated stores in other areas of the country, including the midwestern and southeastern states, and internationally in the Caribbean and Canada. The company was founded and headquartered in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and moved to Brooklyn, New York, in the early 20th century. Grand Union moved again to Elmwood Park, New Jersey, and finally to Wayne, New Jersey, before the company was forced into Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2001 and sold to C&S Wholesale Grocers.

After C&S bought Grand Union, it down-scaled most of its operations, keeping only a number of stores in upstate New York and New England open. The chain was sold to Tops Friendly Markets in 2012; in 2013 Tops rebranded the remaining Grand Union stores with the Tops logo and the Grand Union name was discontinued. After Tops and Price Chopper Supermarkets merged in 2021, the combined entity was forced to sell 12 stores to meet regulatory approval, and on November 9, 2021, C&S announced that they were purchasing the 12 stores and would convert them to Grand Union stores, reviving the brand.[2]

History

Origins

Grand Union started in Scranton, Pennsylvania, as the Jones Brothers Tea Company in 1872. By the 1930s it was one of the largest grocery chains in the United States.[3] The name "Grand Union" was inspired by the desire to "unite shoppers with low prices in a 'Grand Union of Value as described by company associate Elvin Sanders. The store's mascot was Abraham Lincoln wearing a deli apron, and most stores featured a costumed Lincoln to accomplish deeds, talk to customers, and proclaim the general splendor of the Grand Union, and to urge them to "Save the Union" when the company faced economic hardship.

In the early 1950s, Grand Union merged with Great Eastern and began construction on a new shopping center in what was then known as East Paterson (now Elmwood Park), New Jersey. The strip was to include a new Grand Union store with an office tower attached that would serve as the company's new corporate headquarters. The store and new headquarters opened in 1951. In 1987, Grand Union moved its corporate headquarters to Willowbrook Center in Wayne, abandoning its Elmwood Park offices. Grand Union did not close the Elmwood Park store, though, and it remained in operation until 2001.[4]

In 1956, Grand Union opened a discount department store chain (called Grand Way) in Keansburg, New Jersey. Many of these stores combined a grocery store and a department store, which was similar to the combination Bradlees and Stop & Shop stores that were around during that time as well. Others were separate stores. For instance, a multi-level Grand Way store was built on a vacant lot across from the Elmwood Park corporate headquarters while the company built a strip mall in nearby Paramus, where the Grand Way anchored one end with the Grand Union anchoring the other. These stores were eventually closed and sold to other competitors, such as Winn-Dixie. The Elmwood Park and Paramus Grand Way stores were sold to Kmart; both stores were closed during Kmart's massive downsizing, with the Elmwood Park store being demolished and replaced by a ShopRite supermarket owned by Inserra Supermarkets.

In 1959, Grand Union's 38 stores it operated in Ontario, Canada, were sold to Steinberg's (supermarket), a Quebec-based supermarket and department store chain. Those locations were quickly rebranded into Steinberg's grocery stores, but over time most of their former Grand Union stores were closed and moved to new stores, due to poor locations compared to local competitors.

The J. Wayne Harris era

In 1997, Grand Union brought in J. Wayne Harris to begin a turnaround of the ailing chain. Harris had recently been an executive at A&P and at Kroger, and had an excellent reputation in the industry.

Harris immediately began remodeling stores and building larger ones, which put even more stress on the company's finances and forced another Chapter 11 filing in 1998. The company emerged again in 1999 and had $175 million in new capital, which Harris used to finish the remodels on the stores that were still in the process and to acquire more construction permits for larger stores. He also used some of the money for new store formats, with three emerging. One was "Grand Union Fresh Market", which catered more to an upscale gourmet clientele more in the vein of its competitor Kings. Another was a discount grocery store named "Mega Save". A third was Grand Union's answer to limited selection chains such as Aldi and Save-A-Lot, called "Hot Dot".

None of these ideas worked out, and again Grand Union's finances reached dire straits. In addition to this, many of Grand Union's executives were found to have been stealing money such as Don Vaillancourt, who was convicted of embezzling over $2 million from the company in 2002.[10] Harris was forced out in 2000 and took a job with JCPenney, who hired him to revive their Eckerd drugstore chain. Harris failed to do that as well, and Eckerd was sold to a combination of Jean Coutu Group and CVS Corporation in 2004.

In addition to the now-critical debt being borne by Grand Union, the company was unable to build the stores it wanted to as there was not enough money left. A Fishkill, New York store was sold to a ShopRite ownership group before it could open, and the construction of a store in its home area of Wayne, New Jersey, was halted for over a year.

In October 2000, Grand Union filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for a third time.[11] Two months later, the bankruptcy was converted to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy after it was discovered that the damage Harris' failed ideas and the embezzlement scandal had done to the company left it with so little money that Grand Union could not operate or supply any of its stores. A search for a buyer began, but in spite of the filing the stores continued to do business as before.

2001 acquisition by C&S Wholesale Grocers

Grand Union's Chapter 7 filing had a large effect on its supplier C&S Wholesale Grocers, a New England–based wholesale food distributor of which Grand Union was its largest customer.[12] C&S also was one of Grand Union's largest creditors, and made a stalking horse offer to take control of the company in early 2001 that was approved.

Shortly afterward, C&S began reorganizing Grand Union's operations. This resulted in a consolidation that left the chain with only a relatively small number of stores in smaller cities and towns across Upstate New York and New England. In addition, Grand Union's stores in the Northeast, where it was long established, were closed. Many of the medium-sized and most of the larger Grand Union stores, as well as most of the construction permits for stores that had yet to be built or finished, were sold to Ahold while C&S continued to supply the stores. At the time of the acquisition of Grand Union by C&S, Ahold had been looking to establish a presence in the Northeast as well through its Edwards Super Food Stores chain and was initially a bidder for Grand Union. Eventually Ahold converted the Edwards stores to Stop & Shop, reintroducing the brand to the area, and later converted the Grand Union stores it acquired to Stop & Shops as well. Ahold began supplying Grand Union stores for some time prior to their rebranding. This meant that although the store retained the Grand Union sign on the outside and various other signage on the inside, it had Stop & Shop branded items on the shelves.

Other supermarket chains that purchased Grand Union stores included Tops, which was at the time also an Ahold subsidiary, Shaw's, Hannaford, Price Chopper and Pathmark. Some of the other medium-sized stores were sold to department store chains such as Marshalls and Kohl's, while many of the smaller stores were sold to independent grocers and drugstore chains such as Eckerd, Rite Aid, CVS, and Walgreens. Other stores, like the former flagship in Elmwood Park, were demolished after closing and replaced with other buildings.

As for the stores that remained under the Grand Union banner, they became part of a rebranded Grand Union Family Markets, complete with a new logo that discarded the 1980s "Red Dot" logo. Many of the stores did keep the Red Dot, although not all of them did.

Grand Union (supermarket)

History

Origins

Ownership by "The Red Raider" James Goldsmith

1989 acquisition by Gary Hirsch

The J. Wayne Harris era

2001 acquisition by C&S Wholesale Grocers

Acquisition by Tops Friendly Markets

2021 revival of the brand

External links

References