When was safeway created

See more Companies in this Industry: Food Retail. Safeway, Inc. It has an extensive network of distribution, manufacturing and food-processing facilities to support the retail operations. Safeway provides full array of grocery items, food and general merchandise and feature a variety of specialty departments, such as bakery, delicatessen, floral and pharmacy, as well as Starbucks coffee shops and fuel centers. The company owns and operates GroceryWorks.

LLC, an online grocery channel doing business under the names Safeway. It changed its name from Safeway Stores, Inc. Safeway was founded by M. Skaggs in and is headquartered in Pleasanton, CA.

In , M. Skaggs, an ambitious young man in the small Idaho town of American Falls, purchased a tiny grocery store from his father. By he was opening Skaggs stores in 10 states. Two years later M. There are now over 1, Safeway stores across the US and Canada. Our website offers recipes, meal tips and great options for healthier living. We also deliver groceries in many major U. Customers can order anytime from their home or office, or order on-the-go using our mobile app. At the time of the merger, the company was headquartered in Reno, Nevada.

But in , Safeway relocated its headquarters to a former grocery warehouse in Oakland, California. Safeway, with financing supplied by Merrill Lynch, then began to aggressively acquire numerous regional grocery store chains, including MacMarr a California chain also assembled by Charles Merrill , the Sanitary Grocery Company of Washington D.

The company also acquired the west coast Piggly Wiggly stores in as part of the break up of that company by Wall Street. Most acquired chains retained their own names until the mid s. The number of stores peaked at 3, in , when the numerous smaller grocery stores began being replaced with larger supermarket stores.

International expansion was an early part of the company's growth. The company expanded into Canada in , into the United Kingdom in , with the acquisition of the eleven store John Gardner Limited, into Australia in , with the acquisition of three store Pratt Supermarkets, into Germany in , with the acquisition of several Big Bear stores.

The company also had operations in Saudi Arabia in partnership with the Tamimi Group in the 's and Kuwait during the 's and s. The company historically had drug store operations, under the Super S brand.

However, these were sold in With the assistance of KKR, the company was taken private, and assumed tremendous debt. The Houston division was bought by a management-led group and became AppleTree Markets.

Safeway's national presence was reduced to Northern California and several western states, plus the Washington, D.