Giant Eagle - History

History

In 1918, three families, Goldstein/Shapira, Porter, and Chait built a series of small grocery stores they called Eagle Grocery. They were successful and the business grew steadily to 125 stores. In 1928, these three families sold Eagle Grocery to the Kroger Company. As part of their arrangement with Kroger, the families agreed to leave the grocery business for a period of three years.

In the meantime, two families, Moravitz and Weizenbaum, built their own successful chain of grocery stores named OK Grocery. In 1931, the five families combined forces to form Giant Eagle. Giant Eagle operated stores throughout Pittsburgh-area neighborhoods, and the chain grew steadily throughout the ing stores that were converted to the Giant Eagle name. The Kent and Ravenna, Ohio, stores were the first to be converted at that time; the Youngstown stores then got converted years later. Around mid or late 1990s, Giant Eagle ("GE") chain later reached Cleveland, Ohio.

The company entered the Toledo, Ohio, market opening two stores in 2001 and 2004. Giant Eagle emerged as one of the dominant supermarket chains in Northeast Ohio, competing mainly against the New York-based Tops, from which it purchased 18 stores in October 2006. The purchases came as Tops exited the Northeast Ohio area.

Giant Eagle purchased independently-owned County Market stores, giving it a store in Somerset, Pennsylvania, a new store in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and its first Maryland stores: one in Cumberland, one in Hagerstown, and two in Frederick. The Cumberland store closed in December 2003, and the Hagerstown store closed in August 2005.

Giant Eagle has aggressively expanded its footprint in the Greater Columbus area, capitalizing on the demise of the former Big Bear supermarket chain, and taking Big Bear's traditional place as Columbus' upmarket grocer. Giant Eagle first entered what it calls its "Columbus Region" in late 2000, opening three large newly-built stores at Sawmill and Bethel Rd., Lewis Center, and Dublin-Granville Rd., with two more following in 2002 and 2003 at Gahanna and Hilliard-Rome Rd. In 2004, Giant Eagle purchased nine former Big Bear stores in Columbus, Newark, and Marietta from parent company Penn Traffic. Giant Eagle has since expanded to several additional locations, acquiring other abandoned Big Bear stores and in newly-constructed buildings using the current Giant Eagle prototype. Giant Eagle opened its 20th Columbus-area at New Albany Road at the Ohio Rt. 161 freeway (New Albany) in August 2007, its 21st area store at Hayden Run and Cosgray Roads (Dublin) in November 2007, its 22nd area store at Stelzer and McCutcheon Roads (Columbus) in July 2008 and its 23rd area store at South Hamilton Road and Winchester Pike (Groveport) in August 2008. A new Giant Eagle opened in Lancaster, Ohio, in November 2008, and the former Big Bear located at Blacklick Crossing is undergoing an expansion and remodeling.

Giant Eagle has the highest share of any supermarket chain in the Pittsburgh area, largely due to being a de facto monopoly in the region (only Aldi and stores supplied by Supervalu such as Shop 'n Save, FoodLand, and Save-A-Lot even have a presence in the area, let alone significant market share), but has lost some market share in recent years due to Wal-Mart's construction of supercenters in the area.

Aside from Wal-Mart, Giant Eagle's last major competitor in the Pittsburgh market was, ironically, Kroger, which had bought the original Eagle.