A supermarket is a self-serviceshop offering a wide variety of food, beverages and household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earlier grocery stores, but is smaller and more limited in the range of merchandise than a hypermarket or big-box market. In everyday United States usage, however, "grocery store" is often used to mean "supermarket".
The supermarket typically has places for fresh meat, fresh produce, dairy, deli items, baked goods, and similar foodstuffs.
Shelf space is also reserved for canned and packaged goods and for various non-food items such as kitchenware, household cleaners, pharmacy products and pet supplies. Some supermarkets also sell other household products that are consumed regularly, such as alcohol (where permitted), medicine, and clothing, and some sell a much wider range of non-food products: DVDs, sporting equipment, board games, and seasonal items (e.g., Christmaswrapping paper, Easter eggs, school uniforms, Valentine's Day themed gifts, Mother's Day gifts, Father's Day gifts and Halloween).
A larger full-service supermarket combined with a department store is sometimes known as a hypermarket. Other services may include those of banks, cafés, childcare centers/creches, insurance (and other financial services), mobile phone sales, photo processing, video rentals, pharmacies, and gas stations. If the eatery in a supermarket is substantial enough, the facility may be called a "grocerant", a portmanteau of "grocery" and "restaurant".
The traditional supermarket occupies a large amount of floor space, usually on a single level. It is usually situated near a residential area in order to be convenient to consumers. The basic appeal is the availability of a broad selection of goods under a single roof, at relatively low prices. Other advantages include ease of parking and frequently the convenience of shopping hours that extend into the evening or even 24 hours of the day. Supermarkets usually allocate large budgets to advertising, typically through newspapers and television. They also present elaborate in-shop displays of products. (Full article...)
SPAR, originally "DESPAR", styled as "DE SPAR" (Dutch pronunciation:[dəˈspɑr]), is a Dutch multinational franchise that provides branding, supplies and support services for independently owned and operated food retail stores. It was founded in the Netherlands in 1932, by Adriaan van Well, and as of 2022[update] consists of 13,996 stores in 48 countries.
Its headquarters are in Amsterdam. The company operates a partnership programme and has a presence in most European countries, as well as throughout Asia, Africa and Oceania. (Full article...)
DEKA was a nationwide chain of general merchandise stores in New Zealand. It was launched in 1988 by L.D. Nathan, which split its supermarket and general merchandise divisions. In 1992 ownership of DEKA shifted to the Farmers Trading Company, which had until then been a competitor. As a result of unsustainable financial losses, all DEKA stores were either closed or converted to Farmers stores in 2001. (Full article...)
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Mosaic Brands Limited is an Australian fashion retail company. It operates 715 stores across Australia under the brands Millers, Rockmans, Noni B, Rivers, Katies, Autograph, Crossroads, W. Lane and Beme. The company's core market is women over the age of 50. (Full article...)
Le Relais des Mousquetaires are rural convenience stores, founded in 1989. Their key principal is to "bring life back to the villages and combat the rural exodus" and offer basic products that are needed in these small isolated villages. According to the website, 'Le Relais des Mousquetaires is a store which meets a requirement: to perform the role of the village grocery so that people who have chosen to live in even the most isolated villages can find supplies close at hand and at the best prices.' (Full article...)
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Briscoe Group is a New Zealandretail chain. It has 92 stores throughout New Zealand trading under the Briscoes Homeware (48) and Rebel Sport (44) nameplates. The company was founded in 1861 in Dunedin, New Zealand, providing wares to gold miners. Profit in 2022 was $88.4 million. It has 2,300 staff in 90 stores. (Full article...)
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Godfreys was an Australian retailer in the domestic and commercial floorcare and cleaning industry, headquartered in Melbourne. Founded by Godfrey Cohen in 1931, at its peak it had more than 220 company and franchise-owned stores combined across Australia and New Zealand. (Full article...)
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Foodland is an Australian supermarket chain in South Australia, founded in 1962 and has been operating for over 60 years.
Foodland has established itself as an well-known brand in the South Australian retail sector and directly employs over 7,000 staff and indirectly more than 1,500 South Australian staff. There were 96 stores covering South Australia and Broken Hill in 2023. (Full article...)
Distribuidora Internacional de Alimentación, S.A. (DIA) is a Spanish multinational discount supermarket chain founded in 1979. At the end of 2023 it had 3,956 stores, of which 2,318 in Spain, 1,048 in Argentina and 590 in Brazil with approximately 28,500 employees and a turnover of 8.9 billion euros. Dia also markets up to 7,500 Dia branded products internationally. (Full article...)
Oporto has more than 100 eat-in or take-away restaurants in Australia and New Zealand. It previously also operated stores throughout China and expanded to Sri Lanka and Vietnam in August 2018. Oporto is also looking to expand its operations into the Middle East; its Dubai store opened in early 2020. (Full article...)
Hannahs operates at 70 locations around New Zealand: 34 under its main Hannahs brand, 16 under its low-price Number One Shoes brand, and 20 as combined Number One Shoes and Hannahs stores. (Full article...)
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Pak'nSave (stylised as PAK'nSAVE) is a New Zealand discount food supermarket warehouse chain owned by the Foodstuffs cooperative. It is one of the three main supermarket chains in New Zealand, alongside Woolworths New Zealand and New World (the latter is also owned by Foodstuffs). There is a total of 58 Pak'nSave stores throughout the country.
Pak'nSave stores are large and have a no frills environment, often with unlined interiors and concrete floors. (Full article...)
Aldi (stylised as ALDI) is the common company brand name of two German multinational family-owned discount supermarketchains operating over 12,000 stores in 18 countries. The chain was founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946, when they took over their mother's store in Essen. The business was split into two separate groups in 1960, that later became Aldi Nord, headquartered in Essen, and Aldi Süd, headquartered in neighbouring Mülheim.
In 1962, they introduced the name Aldi (a syllabic abbreviation for Albrecht Diskont), which is pronounced [ˈaldiː]ⓘ. In Germany, Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd have been financially and legally separate since 1966, although both divisions' names may appear as if they were a single enterprise with certain store brands or when negotiating with contractor companies. The formal business name of Aldi Nord is Aldi Einkauf GmbH & Co., while the formal business name of Aldi Süd is ALDI SÜD Dienstleistungs-SE & Co. Each company is owned and operated independently, but they do have contractual business with one another. (Full article...)
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The Paper Plus Group is a group of three brands in New Zealand. The group is a three brand co-operative franchise business model.
Two of the stores, Paper Plus and Take Note, sell books, stationery, cards, magazines and giftware, while Office Spot focuses on home office and business supplies. (Full article...)
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Poivre Rouge (lit.'"Red Pepper"' in French) is a chain of restaurants in France owned by La Boucherie Group. Most locations are found in retail parks of the Les Mousquetaires, known as Les Marchés des Mousquetaires. Poivre Rouge was founded as Restaumarché in 1980 by Les Mousquetaires.
Bazaar supermarkets is a soft discount supermarket and Cash & Carry chain in Greece. As of 2023, it operates around 191 retail stores all over Greece, including 10 Cash & Carry stores. It belongs to the Veroukas Group A.E. (Full article...)
Hannahs operates at 70 locations around New Zealand: 34 under its main Hannahs brand, 16 under its low-price Number One Shoes brand, and 20 as combined Number One Shoes and Hannahs stores. (Full article...)
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Piccadilly (Пикадили) is a former Bulgarian supermarket chain operating in Varna and Sofia. Founded as a 51% foreign-owned company in 1995, it opened its first supermarket in Varna in 1994 and became 100% Bulgarian-owned in 2003. Piccadilly was known for its near-complete dominance of the market in Varna to the extent that it prevented large international chains such as Billa from opening new stores.
A loyalty program, Piccadilly Club, was started in 2003. On 12 September 2007 the Serbian firm "Delta Holding" bought 85% of the Piccadilly Chain Supermarket. Under the deal, Delta had to invest about €70m in Piccadilly and open 20 new stores which would hire about 1000 new employees. That was the first deal in which Serbian capital was invested in an EU member state. Through the acquisition of Delta Maxi Group in July 2011, Piccadilly became a member of the Belgian international food retailer Delhaize Group. The chain disposed of 26 Piccadilly supermarkets (eight of them on the territory of Varna, five in Sofia, three in Plovdiv, one in Burgas, one in Veliko Tarnovo, one in Lovech, one in Stara Zagora, one in Vidin, one in Samokov, one in Yambol, one in Gabrovo and one in Rousse) and 13 Piccadilly Express corner shops (ten in Sofia, two in Plovdiv and one in Varna). In 2014 the chain was once again sold by Delhaize to the Bulgarian company AP Mart and the company decided to merge the Piccadilly stores chain with the Carrefour Market operated by KMB Bulgaria franchiser. But the deal never happened. In 2015, Piccadilly took a €11.8m loan from Investbank to repay its suppliers and lenders. (Full article...)
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Promodès is a former Frenchgroup of retailers. It was owned up to 56% by the Halley family. Paul-Auguste Halley, which was a simple grocer in the Manche in the 1950s, had the idea of importing the concept of supermarkets in France.
With his two sons, Paul-Louis and Robert, he founded the group Promodis (future Promodès) in 1961 in Caen (Calvados) by combining several Norman families of wholesalers: the Halley's, the Duval-Lemonnier and the Marette. (Full article...)
The overall size of the sector has been increasing since the end of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, with retail sales increasing by 30% between 1999 and 2005. One contributing factor was the growth of larger stores with greater buying power and economies of scale, at the cost of smaller bricks and mortar merchants. Another contributing factor was low price inflation, with the price of imported goods falling 12% during that period. (Full article...)
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Restaurant Brands New Zealand Limited, trading as Restaurant Brands, is a New Zealandfast food company. Restaurant Brands currently operates and owns the master franchising rights for the Carl's Jr., KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell brands in New Zealand. Restaurant Brands operates most of New Zealand's stores for the brands they own rights to and provides management and support services to New Zealand's independent franchisees of the remaining stores. (Full article...)
... that a British supermarket uses barriers to prevent shoppers grabbing food with yellow discount stickers out of the hands of staff?
... that before Angeli Foods was sold this year, the first self-service grocery store in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan had been owned by three generations of a single family?
Four people are killed and ten others are wounded in a shooting at the Mad Butcher supermarket in Fordyce, Arkansas, United States. The suspect, Travis Eugene Posey, is shot and arrested by Arkansas State Police. (AP)
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