American Stores

American Stores Company was an American public corporation and a holding company which ran chains of supermarkets and drugstores in the United States from 1917 through 1999. The company was incorporated in 1917 when The Acme Tea Company merged with four small Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area grocery stores (Childs, George Dunlap, Bell Company and A House That Quality Built) to form American Stores. In the following eight decades, the company would expand to 1,575 food and drugstores in 38 states with $20 billion in annual sales in 1998.

History

By 1925, American Stores had grown from 5 supermarkets in 1917 to nearly 1,800 stores. In 1946, a proposed acquisition of Grand Union supermarkets was turned down by Grand Union stockholders.

1960s-1970s

In 1961 American Stores company acquired California's Alpha Beta chain of supermarkets. In the 1970s, in order to compete with lower priced grocery retailers such as ShopRite and Pathmark (competitors which did not offer trading stamps), Acme Markets launched its Super Saver discount grocery chain in Pennsylvania.