Falley's
The Food-4-Less name and logo was originally conceived in the 1930s by Lou Falley, who developed a chain of stores both in the Food-4-Less name (with the warehouse/no frills format) and the Falley's name. The Falley's stores were full service supermarkets, while the Food-4-Less stores were warehouse stores, where labor costs were cut by having the groceries stocked to the shelves in the original cases, rather than stacking individual items. These stores were located throughout eastern Kansas and parts of northwestern Missouri. Over the years, the number of Falley's store diminished, and were replaced with Food-4-Less stores. Falley's also franchised Food 4 Less in states where it did not operate.
Ron Burkle's Yucaipa Companies acquired Falley's in 1987. In a period of consolidation for the grocery industry, Food 4 Less merged into Ralphs; Fred Meyer acquired Ralphs in 1997, and was acquired by Kroger a year later.
In 1998, Fred Myer sold Falley's and the Midwest Food 4 Less to Associated Wholesale Grocers of Kansas City. The warehouse type stores were slowly phased out in favor of full service Food-4-Less stores with a new logo and format.
In January 2006, the AWG-owned Falley's and Food-4-Less stores located in Kansas were combined with sister company Homeland Stores, based in Edmond, Oklahoma. The company changed the names of the Food-4-Less stores, which it can't use beyond Kansas and Missouri, to AWG brands such as Price Chopper.
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