| 1891 - |
Two friends, Samuel Robinson and Robert Crawford, opened a small neighborhood grocery store in South Philadelphia with a philosophy that emphasized
quality products, low prices and friendly service. The name of the store was "The House that Quality Built."
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| 1917 - |
Robinson and Crawford merged Acme Markets with four other Philadelphia area grocery chains, and the combined company was named American Stores.
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| 1930 - |
The Acme banner was born in New Jersey, when Acme Markets opened two of the very first self-service supermarkets. Many more would follow.
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| 1961 - |
The company acquired California's Alpha-Beta stores.
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| 1971 - |
American Stores was acquired by Skaggs Drug Centers which took the American Stores name, and relocated the headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah.
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| 1984 - |
American Stores acquired Jewel Companies, Inc., which included several large chains: Jewel and Jewel-Osco in the Chicago area; Eisner Foods in
downstate Illinois and Indiana (later merged into Jewel-Osco); Buttrey Food & Drug in Montana and other Western states; Star Markets in New England;
Osco Drug in the Midwest, and Sav-On Drugs in California, Nevada, and Texas.
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| 1988 - |
It acquired Lucky Stores, also in California, and then divested Alpha Beta to the Yucaipa Cos., Buttrey Food & Drug was spun off to its management,
which subsequently sold the chain to Albertsons (prior to American Stores merger with Albertsons); and Star Market was sold to Investcorp, which
subsequently sold the chain to J Sainsbury plc, who merged it with their Shaw's Markets chain, which was itself sold to Albertsons in 2004.
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| 2000 - |
Acme and Albertson's joined forces! With this merger they were 2,400 stores strong in 38 states with over 200,000 associates.
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| 2003 - |
They were 3,300 neighborhood stores strong.
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| 2006 - |
Albertsons was acquired by Supervalu.
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