Save-a-Lot
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| Private | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Founded | 1977 |
| Headquarters | Earth City, Missouri |
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Number of locations
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1,280 |
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Key people
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Eric Claus (CEO), Tom Lenkevich (COO) |
| Products | Bakery, dairy, deli, frozen foods, general grocery, meat, produce, snacks, seafood, liquor |
| Owner | Onex Corporation |
| Website | save-a-lot |
Save-A-Lot is an American hard discount supermarket chain headquartered in Earth City, Missouri, near St. Louis, Missouri, United States. The subsidiary of Onex Corporation comprises more than 5,900 stores across 36 states in the United States with over $4 billion in annual sales.
While stores carry most typical grocery products, they feature less variety than conventional supermarkets. A typical Save-A-Lot is 15,000 square feet (1,400 m2) with items displayed in their cardboard shipping boxes.
Save-A-Lot was founded in 1977 by Bill Moran as an alternative to larger supermarkets. He opened the first Save-A-Lot store in Cahokia, Illinois, and remained with the company until his retirement in 2006. Moran oversaw the expansion of his company from the one Cahokia store to more than 1,000 locations across the country. He was succeeded as President and CEO by Bill Shaner, previously COO of Save-A-Lot. Shaner began his career at Save-A-Lot in 1999 after spending 15 years in the operations division at parent company Supervalu. In May 2011, Bill Shaner was replaced as President and CEO of Save-a-Lot by Walmart veteran Santiago Roces, who most recently served as senior vice president and general manager of Walmart's small format division.
In September 2012, Supervalu announced it would close 22 Save-A-Lot stores in seven states. Several executive changes were made by Supervalu on March 4, 2013, including replacing Save-A-Lot CEO Roces with Ritchie Casteel. This came in the midst of plans by Supervalu to sell a number of its other grocery chains to Cerberus Capital Management.
In October 2016, SuperValu announced they are selling Save-A-Lot to Onex Corporation.
In 1978, General Grocer Company expanded the company's presence in the greater St. Louis area. Eventually, the store network grew to 30 stores by the end of the decade. At the root of company's growth strategy is its licensee relationship, in which Save-A-Lot acts as a wholesaler to its independent store owners as opposed to a franchisor. Smaller, independent grocery retailers soon found the limited assortment model to be an effective defensive strategy against the larger chain supermarkets. With help from new licensees, in 1980 alone Save-A-Lot added 50 stores in the Mid-South region, and a warehouse in Jackson, Tennessee.
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Wikipedia