Rouses

Rouses Supermarkets

Industry	Retail
Founded	1923 as City Produce Company
Headquarters	Thibodaux, Louisiana, USA
Number of locations	37
Key people	J.P. Rouse - Founder Anthony Rouse Ciro DiMarco
Products	Grocery Bakery Seafood
Number of employees	4,500
Website	www.rouses.com

Rouses Supermarkets are a chain of grocery markets in the U.S. states of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi with more than 5,000 employees. The company had its start as the City Produce Company, founded in Thibodaux, Louisiana by J. P. Rouse in 1923, which bought produce from local farmers in the Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes, as well as the French Market in New Orleans, and shipped them around the United States.

In 1960, Anthony Rouse (son of J. P. Rouse) and his cousin, Ciro DiMarco, opened a 7,000-square-foot (650 m²) grocery store in Houma, Louisiana. In the 1970s, the company operated stores in Houma, Raceland and the Rouses’ hometown of Thibodaux. During the 1980s, the company opened new stores in South Louisiana, in the communities of Lockport, Cut Off and Morgan City.

Rouses opened its first store in Metairie in 1995 and was then the largest independent grocer in Louisiana.

In 2003, Rouses opened a 54,000-square-foot (5,000 m²) store in Covington. That store was followed by other St. Tammany Parish locations in Mandeville in 2005 and Slidell in 2006.

In 2007, two years after hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the New Orleans area, Rouses acquired A&P’s Southern Division of 17 Sav-A-Center stores, effectively doubling the company in size, and giving the company its first stores in the city of New Orleans and in Mississippi. In 2008, Rouses acquired two additional stores in Mississippi.