Food Lion

'Food Lion'\ is an American grocery store chain with 1,200 stores found in 11 Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic states, including Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Serving these stores are 485 Food Lion semi trucks driving 52 million miles per year. There are 28,000 different products offered in each store, and more than 2,900 Food Lion brand products. They receive more than 10 million customers every week, and employ approximately 73,000 people. Food Lion is headquartered in Salisbury, North Carolina.

Bloom

Bloom is a concept store being test marketed in the Charlotte, North Carolina area.
The first of five test stores opened on May 26, 2004.
The concept is based on the idea of using a slightly unconventional layout to maximize shopper convience.

Reid’s

Reid’s is a small chain of stores located in various rural South Carolina communites.
These stores were all formerly branded as Food Lion stores and continue to carry Food Lion branded goods and use the Food Lion infrastructure.
The common theme to these stores appears to be that they are all older stores which Food Lion has apparently deteremined are located in markets small enough to make enlarging or opening a new store unprofitable, but which with a different brand name to differentiate them from Food Lion so that the prices and selection can be different from a standard Food Lion store can still be profitably run without remodeling.
Reid’s apparently has no web presence and advertises mainly via newsaper ads with occasional television ads when a new store "opens".

Primetime Live

In the 1990's, Food Lion gained a degree of notoriety when it was the subject of an ABC News investigation. ABC had received a tip about unsanitary practices at Food Lion. Two ABC reporters had posed as Food Lion employees, and witnessed the unsanitary practices at Food Lion. Much of what they had seen was videotaped with cameras hidden in wigs that they were wearing.

Food Lion was then featured in a segment on the news magazine Primetime Live, in which their unsanitary practices were exposed.

Food Lion responded by suing ABC for fraud, because the ABC employees misrepresented themselves; for trespassing, because the ABC employees came on to Food Lion property without permission; and for breach of loyalty, the ABC employees videotaped non-public areas of the store and revealed internal company information.

Food Lion was awarded $5.5 million by a jury in 1997. The award was later reduced by a judge to $316,000. Then the verdict was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. According to the court, even though ABC was wrong to do what they had done, they felt that Food Lion was unable to show that they had been directly injured by ABC's actions.

Food Lion

Food Lion

Bloom

Reid’s

Primetime Live

See Also