Safeway Inc is a grocery store chain founded in American Falls, Idaho in April 1915. The founder S. M. Skaggs was a Baptist minister who was against “the growing evil of installment purchasing” within the system of grocers and storekeepers. He decided to create a store called Skaggs where customers reach for their items of the store shelves and paid for the items at the checkout counter. Since S.M. Skaggs would rather focus his time with his ministry, his son Marion Barton Skaggs (M.B. Skaggs) offered $1088 (equal to $31500 in 2022) to purchase the store. Three years later, he opened an additional store in Burley, Idaho. Continuing to grow his business, Skaggs maintained many stores in Idaho and Montana.
By 1926, M.B. Skaggs purchased a grocer and a coffee company named Skaggs Cash Store and Skaggs United Stores, recruited his five brothers to grow the brand and built 428 stores in 10 states. Also, Skaggs nearly doubled his business’ size when the company merged with 322 Sam Seelig Company stores and incorporated the merger as Safeway Inc. as Skaggs believed the chain that may outlast his own life shouldn’t carry his name. The name’s purpose was to show that this was the “safe way” of buying food because it was purchased by cash, not credit. Also, a family wouldn’t be in debt due to a store bill which was happening to many families at the time and contributed to the Great Depression.
Later that year, Charles E Merrill, founder of brokerage firm Merrill Lynch, had a vision of consolidating the grocery industry on the West Coast. He bought W.R.H. Weldon’s share of 322 Safeway stores and offered Skaggs $1.5 million dollars plus 30,000 shares of the merging firm which he accepted. Upon the Skaggs/Safeway merger, M.B. Skaggs received the title of Chief Executive. Two years later, Safeway was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In the 1930s, the grocery chain introduced pricing by the pound, “sell by” dates on perishable items, nutritional facts and parking lots, an emerging concept at the time. The merger instantly made Safeway the largest grocery store chain west of the Mississippi River. While the company’s headquarters were in Reno, Nevada, in 1929 it was relocated to Oakland, CA until it was moved to Pleasanton, CA in 1996.
The company expanded into many US states and other countries like Canada, UK, Australia, West Germany, Mexico, Saudi Arabia & Jordan until 2000. Unfortunately, the expansion was not successful outside the West Coast. In 2014, Safeway explored selling and Albertson’s offered to purchase the company for 9.4 billion. The merger was finalized on January 30, 2015 and the Safeway brands were combined into Albertsons’ operations. A new merger agreement states Kroger is attempting to acquire Albertsons for a reported 24.6 billion.
