KROGER COMPANY

KROGER COMPANY. In 1883, Barney Kroger invested his life savings of $372 to open a grocery store at 66 Pearl Street in downtown Cincinnati. The son of a merchant, he ran his business with a simple motto: “Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself.” In 2013 with nearly 2,500 stores in 31 states under two dozen banners and annual sales of more than $70 billion, Kroger ranked as one of the nation’s largest retailers.

Many aspects of the company’s business trace their roots to Mr. Kroger’s early efforts to serve his customers. In the early 1900s, Kroger became the first grocer in the country to establish his own bakeries. He was also the first to sell meats and groceries under one roof.

Mr. Kroger also realized the promise of increasing his income by manufacturing the products he sold. It began in the first Kroger store on Pearl St. When farmers came to town with their produce, he bought far more cabbage than he could expect his customers to buy. He took the cabbage home to his mother who, following her favorite recipe, turned it into tangy sauerkraut that proved hugely popular with his German customers.

That manufacturing effort was the beginning of what became one of the largest food manufacturing businesses in America. Kroger operated 40 food processing facilities that made thousands of products ranging from bread, cookies and milk to soda pop, ice cream and peanut butter. Nearly half of the 14,400 private-label items found in the company’s stores were made at one of these manufacturing plants. These “corporate brands” accounted for an impressive 26% of the grocery dollar sales at Kroger, providing the company with a huge strategic advantage. Its floral shops rang up enough business to make Kroger at one time the world’s largest florist. Kroger even installed fuel centers in the parking lots of more than 700 stores.

Acquisitions played a key role in Kroger’s growth over the years. In 1983, 100 years after the company’s founding, Kroger merged with Dillon Companies Inc. in Kansas to become a coast-to-coast operator of food, drug and convenience stores. The biggest merger in Kroger’s history came in 1999, when the company teamed up with Fred Meyer, Inc. in a $13 billion deal that created a supermarket chain with the broadest geographic coverage and widest variety of formats in the food retailing industry. The merger also enabled Kroger to generate huge economies of scale in purchasing, manufacturing, information systems and logistics.

Kroger served as a pioneer in the supermarket industry. During the 1930s, it was the first grocery chain to routinely monitor product quality and test foods offered to the customer. In 1972, Kroger became the first grocery retailer in America to test an electronic scanner. It was installed in a store in suburban Cincinnati, and visitors from around the country attended the event. More than 1,600 Kroger stores offered self-checkout. In the 1970s, the company became the first grocer to formalize consumer research. Kroger soon was interviewing more than a quarter-million shoppers each year to find out what they wanted in a supermarket. That feedback prompted Kroger to introduce unpackaged produce and service specialty departments such as delis. Kroger offered several store formats including supermarkets, multi-department stores, price-impact warehouse stores, convenience and fine jewelry stores.

With dozens of manufacturing facilities and distribution centers around the country, Kroger was one of the largest privately owned truck fleets in the country. Trucks moving merchandise and supplies among stores, warehouses and manufacturing plants logged more than 100 million miles annually.

---

Source:

The Kroger Company--www.thekrogerco.com

The 1959 through 1955 Dubuque City Directory listed 270 W. 7th.