Safeway

Safeway, Inc. is an American supermarket chain that provides grocery items and general merchandise along with various specialty departments such as bakery, delicatessen, floral, and pharmacy, as well as Starbucks coffee shops and vehicle fuel centers. Safeway's primary base of operations is in the Western United States, with some stores located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern Seaboard.
It is a subsidiary of Albertsons after being acquired by private equity investors led by Cerberus Capital Management in January 2015. The subsidiary is headquartered in Pleasanton, California.

History

, who already had experience in the grocery business, moved to Portland, Oregon in 1921, and established four grocery stores. This chain of stores grew quickly, and Skaggs enlisted the help of his five brothers to grow the network of stores. By 1926, he had opened 428 stores bearing the family name in 10 states. He then almost doubled the size of his business that year when he merged his company with 322 Sam Seelig Company stores and incorporated as "Safeway, Inc." because he thought a corporate chain that would outlive him should not carry his name.
Safeway was chosen as the name because the stores operated exclusively on a cash-and-carry basis; they did not offer credit to customers, as American grocers traditionally had done. It was the "safe way" to buy food because a family could not get into debt via its grocery bill. Thus, the original slogan was: "Drive the Safeway. Buy the Safeway".
The 1926 merger came about because of Charles E. Merrill, the founder of the Merrill Lynch brokerage firm, who saw an opportunity to consolidate the West Coast grocery industry. Towards this end, he purchased the 322-store Safeway chain of W.R.H. Weldon, who wished to exit retailing and concentrate on wholesale. Then, in June 1926, Merrill offered Skaggs either $7 million outright or $1.5 million plus 30,000 shares in the merged firm. Skaggs took the latter. On July 1, 1926, Safeway merged with the 673 stores from Skaggs United Stores of Idaho and Skaggs Cash Stores of California. On completion of the Skaggs/Safeway merger, M. B. Skaggs became the Chief Executive of the business. Two years later, Skaggs listed Safeway on the New York Stock Exchange. In the 1930s, Safeway introduced produce pricing by the pound, adding "sell by" dates on perishables, nutritional labeling, and some of the first parking lots.
The merger instantly created the largest chain of grocery stores west of the Mississippi. At the time of the merger, the company was headquartered in Reno, Nevada. In 1929, it was relocated to a former grocery warehouse in Oakland, California, where it had the exclusive zip code of 94660. Safeway headquarters remained there until they moved to their new offices across from Stoneridge Mall in Pleasanton, California, in 1996. In the 1930s, Charles E. Merrill temporarily left Merrill Lynch to help manage Safeway.
In the late 1930s, the New Negro Alliance boycotted the Sanitary Grocery Company to pressure store owners to employ black people, especially in predominantly black neighborhoods. The Sanitary Grocery Company successfully sought an injunction against the New Negro Alliance, which was upheld by the Washington, D.C., Court of Appeals. This led to the 1938 landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision of New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Co., which defended the right to peaceful protest in the resolution of labor disputes.
In 1969, the Black Panther Party and the United Farm Workers launched simultaneous boycotts of Safeway grocery stores, which were the largest grocery store chain in the U.S. West at that time. The Panthers boycotted due to Safeway's refusal to donate to their Free Breakfast for Children Program, created to serve daily hot breakfasts to underprivileged children throughout the U.S. The United Farm Workers boycotted Safeway because the chain continued to sell California grapes despite the union's nationwide boycott. The Panthers and United Farm Workers also acted in solidarity with each other's goals in boycotting Safeway, including during a 1973 Panthers demonstration outside an Oakland Safeway store documented by KPIX Eyewitness news, in which protestors carried signs that read "Boycott Safeway, Boycott Grapes".

Expansion

The initial public offering price of Safeway stock was $226 in 1927. A five for one split in 1928 brought the price down to under $50. Over the next few years, Charles Merrill, with financing supplied by Merrill Lynch, then began aggressively acquiring numerous regional grocery store chains for Safeway in a rollup strategy. Early acquisitions included significant parts of Piggly Wiggly chain as part of the breakup of that company by Merrill Lynch and Wall Street.

Year	Firm	# of stores	Location
1926	H.G. Chaffee	grocery stores	Southern California
1926	Skaggs Cash Stores	679 grocery stores	Idaho
1926	Skaggs United Stores		California
1928	Arizona Grocery/Pay'n Takit Stores	24 grocery stores; 24 meat markets	Arizona
1928	Newway Stores	15 grocery stores; 11 meat markets	El Paso, Texas
1928	Sanitary Grocery	429 grocery stores; 67 meat markets	Washington D.C. and Virginia
1928	Eastern Stores Inc.	67 grocery stores; 127 meat markets	Baltimore, Maryland
1928	Piggly Wiggly Pacific	91 grocery stores; 84 meat markets	Oakland, California
1928	Bird Grocery Stores	224 grocery stores; 210 meat markets	Missouri, Texas, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska
1929	Piggly Wiggly West	91 grocery stores; 84 meat markets	Northern California, Hawaii, Colorado
1929	Sun Grocery	91 grocery stores; 84 meat markets	Tulsa, Oklahoma
1931	MacMarr Stores	grocery stores	Los Angeles
1936	Stores from Kroger	53 grocery stores	Oklahoma
1941	Daniel Reeves	498 grocery stores	New York
1941	National Grocery	84 grocery stores	New Jersey
1958	Thriftway Stores	30 grocery stores	Iowa
2016–2017	Andronico's	9 stores	San Francisco Bay Area

Most transactions involved the swap of stock certificates, with little cash changing hands. Most acquired chains retained their own names until the mid-1930s.
Image:Safeway store numbers by state in 1932.gif|thumb|Safeway store numbers by state and province in 1932
In 1929, there were rumors of a Safeway-Kroger merger. In late 2022, 93 years later, this merger became another possibility with the announced merger of Albertsons Companies and Kroger Co.
The number of stores peaked at 3,400 in 1932, when expansion ground to a halt. The Great Depression had finally impacted the chain, which began to focus on cost control. In addition, numerous smaller grocery stores were being replaced with larger supermarket stores. By 1933, the chain ranked second in the grocery industry behind The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company and ahead of Kroger.
In 1935, Safeway sold its nine stores in Honolulu, Hawaii, "because of the inconvenience of proper supervision". Also in 1935, independent groceries in California convinced the California legislature to enact a progressive tax on chain stores. Before the act took effect, Safeway filed a petition to have the law put to a referendum. In 1936, the California electorate voted to repeal the law.
In 1936, Safeway introduced a money back guarantee on meat.

International expansion

The company expanded into Canada in 1929 with 127 stores, into the United Kingdom in 1962, into Australia in 1963, and into West Germany in 1964. The company also has operations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in a licensing and management agreement with the Tamimi Group during the 1980s. In 1981, it acquired 49% of Mexican retailer Casa Ley.
Safeway usually achieved international expansion by acquiring one or more small chains in a given country. It expanded into Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, however, through a joint venture. This initial nucleus of stores received Safeway systems and technology and then expanded organically. International chains acquired include:

Year	Firm	# of stores	Location
1929	Kroger	9 grocery stores	Canada
1935	Piggly Wiggly	179 stores	Canada
1962	John Gardner Limited	11 stores	United Kingdom
1963	Pratt Supermarkets	3 stores	Melbourne, Australia
1963	Mutual Stores	? stores	Australia
1964	Big Bär Basar	2 stores	West Germany
1980	Jack the Slasher	31 stores	Queensland, Australia
1981	49% of Casa Ley	? stores	Mexico

1940s–1970s

In 1941, Marion B. Skaggs retired from the Safeway board of directors.
In 1947, the company's sales exceeded $1 billion for the first time. By 1951, total sales had reached nearly $1.5 billion. The company adopted the S logo, which it still uses, in 1962.
In 1955, Robert A. Magowan became Chairman of the Board of Safeway. Magowan had married Charles Merrill's daughter, Doris. Magowan also assumed the title of President in 1956. He remained president until 1968 and a member of the board until 1978. In 1966, Robert A Magowan brought his star meat processing plant manager, Michael F. Concannon, to Oakland to become the Head of Meat Processing in North America. He retired in 1978 as well. Mike was instrumental in opening the Stockton plant. The Wichita plant and meat processing in Canada began in the 1970s.
In 1959, Safeway opened its first store in the new state of Alaska – the first major food retailer to enter that market. The company opened three stores in Anchorage and one in Fairbanks over the next several years. The store in downtown Fairbanks was built on the site of a red-light district, known as The Line, which operated for close to a half century. Most of these stores were in buildings constructed by Anchorage real estate developer Wally Hickel, who later became governor of Alaska and U.S. Secretary of the Interior.
Also in 1959, designed by architects Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons, the firm also opened the first "marina-style" store on the Marina in San Francisco.
The exterior mosaic murals on the east side of the building were created by John Garth. The murals depict food being transported from the four corners of the globe. Garth created murals for three other Safeway stores.
Hundreds of stores in this barrel-vaulted-roof style opened during the next decade.
In 1961, the company sold its New York operations to Finast. In 1963, Safeway again opened stores in Hawaii, having exited this market in 1934. It leased one store in Culver City to animator/filmmaker Don Bluth, who used it as a theater until 1967.
In 1969, Safeway entered the Toronto market in Canada and the Houston market in Texas through opening new stores, rather than by acquisition. The firm ultimately failed against entrenched competition in both these markets.
In 1977, Safeway management instituted a program to fight counterfeit $100 bills by, among other things, telling employees that bills that lacked the words "In God We Trust" were counterfeit. Because Safeway had not sufficiently investigated the history of $100 bills, it was unaware that some bills still in circulation did not have the phrase. Eventually, an innocent shopper was incorrectly reported to Oakland, California, police for passing a "counterfeit" bill. He was arrested and strip-searched before Oakland police contacted the Treasury Department and realized the error. The 1981 jury verdict of joint and several liability for $45,000 against Safeway Stores and the City of Oakland was upheld in full by the Supreme Court of California on December 26, 1986.
In 1979, Peter Magowan, son of Robert Magowan and grandson of Charles Merrill, was appointed chairman and CEO of Safeway. Magowan managed Safeway for the next 13 years – presiding over the dramatic decline of the firm in terms of store numbers