What is Safeway Inc.?
A: Safeway is an American supermarket chain founded by Marion Barton Skaggs
in April 1915 in American Falls, Idaho.
The chain provides grocery items,
food and general
merchandise and features a variety of specialty departments, such as what?
A: A bakery, delicatessen, floral and pharmacy, as well as Starbucks coffee
shops and fuel centers.
It is a subsidiary of what?
A: Albertsons after being acquired by private equity investors led by
Cerberus Capital Management in January 2015.
Where is Safeway's primary base of operations?
A: In the Western United States with some stores located in the Mid-Atlantic
region of the Eastern Seaboard.
Where is the subsidiary headquartered?
A: In Pleasanton, California, with its parent company, Albertsons,
headquartered in Boise, Idaho.
Following the organics trend, the stores have expanded
what?
A: The number of organic fruits and vegetables in the produce section and
offer other items under the "O Organics" label.
The stores offer name brands across all product
categories and many what?
A: In-house private label brands.
S.M. Skaggs, a Baptist minister, was convinced that the
prevailing system of allowing customers to buy food from stores on credit
did what?
A: Increased prices, because grocers and storekeepers had to wait to get
paid.
He thought it made the customers overly what?
A: Dependent on those grocers and storekeepers.
He described selling items on credit as what?
A: "The growing evil of installment purchasing".
S.M. Skaggs established a store in American Falls,
Idaho, and he sold what?
A: Groceries for cash at the time of sale.
Skaggs was also against the prevailing high-cost system
of what?
A: The grocer having clerks serving all the needs of each customer.
He was an early proponent of what?
A: The self-service concept.
Items were kept within the customers' reach, on shelves
that hugged the walls, with aisles that were what?
A: Clear for customers to walk comfortably.
Customers picked up what as they entered the store?
A: Baskets, selected what they wanted from the shelves, and paid for their
purchases at a checkout counter.
When S.M. Skaggs decided he wanted to focus on his
Baptist ministry, his son M.B. Skaggs purchased the grocery store from him
for how much?
A: $1,088 (equivalent to $29,100 in 2021).
His second store opened where?
A: In Burley, Idaho, in 1918.
By 1921, where did M.B. Skaggs own multiple stores?
A: In Idaho and Montana.
M.B. Skaggs moved to Portland,
Oregon in 1921, and he
established what?
A: Four groceries in town that year, in part by buying a grocer and a coffee
company.
The chain, operated as what two separate businesses?
A: Skaggs Cash Stores and Skaggs United Stores.
They grew quickly, and Skaggs enlisted the help of his
five brothers to do what?
A: To grow the network of stores.
M.B.'s business strategy, to give his customers value
and to expand by keeping a narrow profit margin, proved to be what?
A: Spectacularly successful.
By 1926, he had opened how many Skaggs stores in 10
states?
A: 428.
M.B. almost doubled the size of his business that year
when he merged his company with what?
A: 322 Sam Seelig Company stores and incorporated as Safeway, Inc..
He thought that a chain that would outlive him should
not carry what?
A: His name.
The point of the name was that the grocery operated on
what?
A: A cash-and-carry basis – it did not offer credit, as grocers
traditionally had done.
Why was it the "safe way" to buy food?
A: Because a family could not get into debt via its grocery bill (as many
families did at the time, especially during the Great Depression).