Supervalu (United States)
- This article is about the U.S. firm. For grocery chains of the same name in other countries, see SuperValu.
Supervalu Inc. is a United States grocery distributor and owner of several grocery chains. The corporation is headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota and has been in business for over a century. Supervalu supplies over 2,500 grocery stores nationwide. In the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, the Cub Foods grocery chain is the retail side of this business. Other corporate retail chains include Save-A-Lot nationwide, bigg's in the Midwest, and Shop 'n Save on the East Coast.
As a supplier to the Independent Grocers of America (IGA), Supervalu necessarily has formed close relationships with these family-owned grocery businesses, some of which have had relationships with the corporation for over 2 or 3 generations. But Walmart's newly-arrived grocery competition to these stores also affects Supervalu, Inc. Supervalu enjoys economies of scale when dealing with the well-known national food firms like Kraft Foods, General Foods, General Mills, the beer manufacturers, meat suppliers, produce suppliers and dairy suppliers, as well as the health and beauty product suppliers, by purchasing in bulk and then fanning out the goods by Direct Store Delivery from its distribution centers, which are located nationwide. The ethnic foods market is an emerging sector and remains a challenge for this business, as well as the natural and organic foods sector, as there are no clear market leaders for the corporation to deal with in these sectors. It remains to be seen whether Supervalu's tradition of dealing with small grocery businesses can be extended to these emerging markets.
External links Supervalu
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