Houchens Industries

Houchens Industries

Type	Private/
Industry	Grocery Store, Insurance and Web Development
Founded	1918
Headquarters	Bowling Green, Kentucky, United States
Key people	James Gipson, CEO Gordon Minter, CFO Ervin Houchens, founder
Revenue	US$2.36 Billion (FY 2005)
Number of employees	11,487 (2007)

Houchens Industries, is an American employee-owned company, in business since 1918 when it began as a small grocery operated by founder Ervin Houchens in rural Barren County, Kentucky. The company is headquartered in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The company runs about 425 grocery and convenience stores. Sales in 2006 were just under $2 billion., with approximately 10,500 employees.

The company is best known as a grocer, owning and operating convenience stores (Jr. Food Stores, Tobacco Shoppe) and supermarkets (Houchens Markets, IGA, Save-A-Lot, Mad Butcher and most recently Price Less Foods/Price Less IGA). In 2004, Houchens acquired Food Giant supermarkets, which operates stores under the Food Giant, Market Place and Piggly Wiggly name.

In recent years, Houchens Industries has diversified greatly, with acquisitions of a Bowling Green-based construction company, as well as recycling, insurance, cigarette manufacturing, and warehousing.

Price Less Foods/Price Less IGA is the newest brand of stores to join Houchens.

Price Less Foods and Price Less IGA are a chain supermarkets located in Alabama, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee and Virginia. They operate on a cost-plus format. They price their products at the cost and then add 10 percent to the final cost at the checkout. They do not have rewards cards or weekly sales ads. The only difference between Price Less Foods and Price Less IGA is that "Foods" does not sell IGA brand products. They sell Best Choice and Always Save brands as well as other top national brands. They currently have 28 locations, and are expanding.