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The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company, known as Stop & Shop, is a chain of supermarkets located in the northeastern United States. From its beginnings in 1892 as a small grocery store, it has grown to become the largest supermarket operator in southern New England, with 422 stores chain-wide upon completion of the purchase of 25 A&P stores. Stop & Shop has been a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dutch supermarket operator Ahold since 1995 and has been part of the Stop & Shop/Giant-Landover division since a 2004 merger with sister chain Giant. Stop and Shop's parent company, Royal Ahold, announced on June 24th, 2015 that it will be merging with Delhaize Group, primarily a grocery store conglomerate including U.S. grocery chains Hannaford and Food Lion. ==History== Stop & Shop's roots can be traced back to 1892, when Solomon and Jeanie Rabinovitz opened a grocery shop, called the "Greenie Store", at 134 Salem Street, in Boston's North End. This store lasted at this location until 1908.〔()〕 According to the company's web site, Stop & Shop was founded in 1914 in Somerville, Massachusetts by the Rabinowitz family as the Economy Grocery Stores Company. Four years later, the store introduced a new concept to retailing: the self-service, modern supermarket. The chain had grown to 86 supermarkets by 1946, when the name was officially changed to Stop & Shop, Inc.〔(Company History - Stop & Shop )〕 Stop & Shop purchased the now-defunct department store chain Bradlees in 1961, and sold it in 1992. It also operated a chain of pharmacies named Medi-Mart, which were sold to Walgreens in the late 1980s, as well as Perkins Tobacco Stores in the 1960s and 1970s. Stop & Shop operates more than 390 stores throughout the three southern New England states, as well as in downstate New York and northern New Jersey. The corporate headquarters is located in Quincy, MA and the current distribution facility is located in Assonet, MA. Until 2006 the firm also operated a large warehouse located off of Interstate 91 in North Haven, Connecticut; while the company's original warehouse was in Readville, MA. In the late 1980s, The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company was acquired by leveraged buyout specialists Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. Shortly thereafter, Medi-Mart was sold to Walgreens, and Bradlees was spun off as its own corporation. After a period of several years in which KKR explored merger possibilities with Safeway (which it also controlled at the time), Stop & Shop was sold at public offering. In 1980, Stop & Shop had supermarkets in New Jersey, New York state south of Kingston, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. The stores were then typical in size at about on average. Many were next door to their then-co-owned Bradlees Department stores. In the New York and Philadelphia metro areas, Stop & Shop was not able to compete successfully. In 1982, Stop & Shop exited New Jersey, selling most of the stores that were profitable to A&P, which would use these stores to replace their aging fleet of stores. Other stores were either sold to other chains or closed and converted to other uses. In New York State they sold some of their stores to A&P while selling others to Grand Union and closing others, converting them also to other uses. Also, in 1982, Stop & Shop built their first Superstore in the Springfield, Massachusetts area. These stores would be between and . In addition to traditional supermarket offerings, these stores feature bakeries, pharmacies, moderate selections of general merchandise one would not expect to find at a supermarket, expanded deli departments, cafes, and a salad bar. Also some of these stores would feature a bank, expanded liquor and beer, video rentals, etc. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, the traditional supermarkets were converted one by one into superstores. Some were remodeled, others were torn down and a new store rebuilt in the same location, while others were closed and replaced with a super store within a mile or two. By 1990, Stop & Shop operated in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Boston area, and Springfield, MA areas only except for its New York state location (which would be closed in 2000 and was joined in 1994 with a Superstore nearby in Wappingers Falls, NY). The Bradlees chain, which also had stores in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, was sold in 1992, and was liquidated after two bankruptcies in 2000. The chain was acquired by the American branch of Dutch food giant Ahold in 1995. Ahold had previously acquired First National Supermarkets, whose Edwards Super Food Stores and Finast chains also had a strong presence in Connecticut, and Ahold planned to operate both the Edwards and Stop & Shop chains side by side. However, in the wake of the acquisition, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal raised anti-trust questions, as Stop & Shop and Edwards combined had more than half of the grocery market share in Connecticut. Following negotiations with Blumenthal, Ahold decided to convert all of its New England stores to the Stop & Shop banner, while selling some locations to other chains such as Shaw's, Shop Rite, and Grand Union. Ahold also began building stores under the Edwards Super Food Stores banner in New York state and New Jersey. They also acquired 26 independent Mayfair Foodtown stores in that area, converting them to Edwards. From 1998 to 1999, several Super Stop & Shop stores were built in the northern Hudson Valley near the Poughkeepsie location. In 1999, Ahold announced its plan to acquire Pathmark supermarkets. Under that deal all the Edwards stores would be renamed Pathmark along with the Giant Stores of both Carlisle and Landover. Late in 2000, after Grand Union was about to enter Chapter 7 bankruptcy and liquidate, Ahold walked away from the Pathmark deal and proposed acquiring many of the Grand Union locations instead. At that point, Ahold continued the transition of its Edwards stores, converting all of its New York and New Jersey locations to the Stop & Shop format late in 2000. In 2001, Ahold acquired most of the Grand Union locations in New Jersey and New York state south of Kingston. These were all renamed Stop & Shop. Other locations went to other supermarket chains, non food chains, or closed altogether. In 2003, Ahold acquired many of the A&P Foodmart locations in the Hartford, Connecticut area, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and the one remaining New Hampshire store. Other A&P locations in that region closed or were sold to other supermarket chains. In 2004, Ahold integrated Stop & Shop Supermarkets with Giant Food LLC and created one combined company with the name of Stop & Shop/Giant-Landover. In 1994, Giant-Landover began northern expansion by opening stores in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey under the Super G trade name. This was done to differentiate itself from future sister company Giant Food Stores of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. During 2005, the newly formed Stop & Shop/Giant made the decision to phase out the Super G name in New Jersey and Delaware. In New Jersey, four Super G stores were shuttered and the remaining eight stores were converted to the Super Stop & Shop banner and became a part of Stop & Shop's New York Sales Division in an attempt to revive sales at the stores. These stores continued to underperform and were subsequently sold in 2007 to ShopRite franchise owners. The Delaware Super G stores were to be remodeled under the Super Stop & Shop format and reopened under the Super Giant banner. Super G stores in Pennsylvania were generally close to Giant-Carlisle locations and were also closed. In 2006, Stop & Shop signed a contract with Starbucks, placing the coffee shop chain's licensed stores inside certain supermarkets. Many Stop & Shop stores currently feature Dunkin' Donuts outlets inside the store. Also in May 2006, Stop & Shop began piloting the Shopping Buddy program in select stores in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The Shopping Buddy is a personal shopping assistant that allows customers to track their purchases and to do in-cart bagging as they move through the store. In October 2007, Stop & Shop launched an advertising campaign which was intended to have users submit stories and videos to a website (www.stopandshop.tv〔http://www.stopandshop.tv/〕) detailing their grocery store experiences. The campaign was significant in that it is an early example of a regional traditional brand employing Web 2.0 concepts such as user-generated content to promote their stores. On August 22, 2008, Stop & Shop changed its logo as a re-branding project along with its sister company, Giant-Landover. In August 2009, Stop & Shop announced closures and re-brandings for a large portion of the licensed Starbucks stores opened in 2006.〔http://www.patriotledger.com/business/x1080448841/Stop-Shop-and-sister-chain-closing-43-in-store-Starbucks-kiosks〕 In 2007 Stop & Shop made an attempt to expand further into northern New England. They built, but did not operate, a single Vermont store in Rutland before selling it to rival supermarket operator Delhaize. Delhaize opened the store under its Hannaford banner in February 2008. Also, in July 2007 Stop & Shop opened a single Maine store in Kennebunk. The store was closed in October 2009, citing slow sales as the primary reason. At the same time, they abandoned plans to build a second Maine store in Portland.〔http://updates.pressherald.mainetoday.com/updates/stop-shop-backing-out-of-maine〕 Delhaize purchased the vacant Kennebunk location in December 2009 and later reopened the property under the Hannaford banner.〔http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=304434〕〔http://www.hannaford.com/custserv/store_detail.jsp?viewStoreId=20895〕 In 2010, Stop & Shop's parent company, Ahold USA, plans to relocate its corporate headquarters which is currently based in Quincy, Massachusetts to Carlisle, Pennsylvania in order to centralize Ahold's US operations in one location. Currently (as of late 2013), Stop & Shop operates stores in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey. Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island in particular have a very strong Stop & Shop base – almost to the point of saturating the market – and Stop & Shop is far beyond their competitors in number of stores operated in those three states. All six of the remaining New Hampshire stores closed in August 2013 due to heavy competition, marking the chain's final departure from northern New England.〔http://boston.cbslocal.com/2013/08/06/stop-shop-closing-its-stores-in-new-hampshire〕 A few Connecticut stores, in Bridgeport, Hamden, and Orange, have also been closed in the last couple of years. In July 2015, Stop & Shop's parent company Ahold announced the intentions to purchase 25 stores from The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P), including A&P's crown jewel and most profitable location in Mt. Kisco, NY, and convert all of the purchased stores to the Stop & Shop banner by the end of November 2015. On September 22nd 2015, The sale of 25 A&P stores to Stop & Shop and 70 to Acme Markets was approved by a judge in federal bankruptcy court. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Stop & Shop」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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