In the early 1900’s S.M. Skaggs a minister from the small town of American Falls, Idaho opened his first grocery store. S. M. Skaggs had a hard time making the business profitable so he sold it to his son M. B. Skaggs in 1915. M. B. was very energetic and had a very solid business sense. With the help of his five brothers, by 1926 he was able to expand the business to include 428 stores in ten states. His strategy was to give the customer value while keeping a narrow profit margin.
In the same year, Charles Merrill (Merrill Lynch) who owned Selig Stores, and Skaggs decided to merge and become Safeway Stores. This merger expanded quickly, and by 1928 there were 2020 stores and the business was being traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
In 1986 Safeway was acquired by Kohlberg, Kravis & Roberts. KKR took the business private and downsized, closing half of their stores, including selling the UK business, in order to pay off debt. Safeway went public again in 1990. With Steve Burd as President/CEO, Safeway focused on slashing costs and lowering prices to increase sales and reduce debt. This strategy worked and Safeway began to grow again. In 1997 Safeway acquired Vons stores for $1.376 billion.
In 2005 Safeway set on a mission to reposition its brands. They wanted to differentiate themselves as a higher quality store and redesigned their logo and changed their slogan to “Ingredients for Life”.
Safeway is currently based in Pleasanton, California and has 201,000 full time employees. Safeway operates 1775 stores under such names as Vons, Randalls, Tom Thumb, Genuardi’s and Carr’s. They also own and operate groce ...