Price Rite

Price Rite

PriceRite, based in Wethersfield, Connecticut, is a chain of limited-assortment supermarkets found in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. As of October 2012, there were 50 PriceRite supermarkets in the rapidly growing chain, which opened six supermarkets in 2009, and four in 2010. New Jersey-based Wakefern Food Corporation (the cooperative that supplies ShopRite Supermarkets) created PriceRite, and owns, operates, or franchises all PriceRite stores.

Similar to other limited-assortment chains Aldi or Save-A-Lot, PriceRite offers drastically fewer SKUs (stock-keeping units) than its sibling ShopRite stores. PriceRite stores operate on the same principles as their competition; however, they are a bit bigger (averaging 35,000 sq ft (3,300 m2)) and concentrate on offering a larger “fresh food” selection.

PriceRite also emphasizes the fact that its stores are American-owned, by incorporating the phrase "An American Company" into the PriceRite trademark. This is presumably to highlight the fact that much of PriceRite's competition is owned by European Union-based entities (Aldi is German-owned, Bottom Dollar Food is Belgian-owned, and Food Basics USA is operated by A&P, which is majority-owned by Germany's Tengelmann Group).

Due to the generic nature of the name "PriceRite", and the unfamiliarity with the brand outside the Northeast, Wakefern has also begun distributing PriceRite-branded merchandise, such as health-and-beauty, paper products, and foodstuffs to other retail outlets, such as dollar stores, mom-and-pop pharmacies, and corner stores, and other supermarkets such as Gristedes Operating Corp., which owns Gristedes Supermarkets in New York City. (Gristedes stores are supplied by Wakefern Food Corporation.) Due to Gristedes' partnership with amazon.com, selected PriceRite-branded products also are available for sale on amazon.com.

Because of its cooperative structure, Wakefern has been very careful not to cannibalize sales of its member-owned ShopRite stores by opening PriceRite stores in overlapping trade areas—thus, most PriceRites are in New England or Pennsylvania, outside ShopRite's core regions, though locations of both sister chains can be within miles of each other. Two stores in California are operated under a franchise agreement with Wakefern.

On November 26, 2012, it was announced that a PriceRite will open in spring 2013 at the former A&P supermarket on Main Street in Danbury, Connecticut. (This A&P closed on March 3, 2012.)