Giant Eagle

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Giant Eagle, Inc.
Type	Private
Founded	1931
Headquarters	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Key people	David Shapira, President and CEO
Industry	Retail (Grocery)
Products	groceries, bakeries, deli, banking, Iggle Video
Revenue	$6.06 billion USD (2005)
Employees	25,500
Slogan	Make every day taste better
Website	www.gianteagle.com

Giant Eagle, Inc. is an American supermarket chain with stores located in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Maryland. Giant Eagle was founded in 1918 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Supermarket News ranked Giant Eagle No. 22 in the 2007 "Top 75 North American Food Retailers" based on 2006 fiscal year estimated sales of $6.5 billion.^[1] In 2005, it was the 32nd largest privately held corporation, as determined by Forbes.^[2] Based on 2005 revenue, Giant Eagle is the forty-ninth largest retailer in the United States.^[3] As of June 2006, the company had 144 company-owned and 72 franchised stores. The company also operates 110 fuel station/convenience stores under the GetGo banner.

The company operates its corporate headquarters in a suburban Pittsburgh office park in Blawnox.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Loyalty program 2 Operations 2.1 GetGo 2.2 Employees 2.3 Advertising 3 Criticism of Giant Eagle 4 References 5 External links

[edit] History

Eagle Grocery was founded by the families of Goldstein/Shapira, Porter, and Chait in 1918 in Pittsburgh. In 1928, the families sold the Eagle Grocery company to the Kroger Company. In 1931, however, the families regained ownership of the Eagle Grocery stores and combined with the Moravitz and Weizenbaum families' OK Grocery chain to form Giant Eagle. The chain continued to prosper even through the 1930s and 1940s, an era of poverty and war. In the 1950s, the average size of a Giant Eagle grocery store was 15,000 ft².

The chain entered Ohio in the 1980s, reaching Cleveland in the 1990s, by acquiring the Stop N Shop stores in the area. The company entered the Toledo, Ohio, market by opening two stores in the area in 2001 and 2004. Giant Eagle emerged as one of the dominant supermarket chains in Northeast Ohio, competing mainly against the New York-based Tops, of which it purchased 18 stores in October 2006.

Giant Eagle purchased independently-owned County Market stores, giving it a replacement store in Somerset, Penn.; a new store in Johnstown, Penn.; and its first Maryland stores: one in Cumberland, one in Hagerstown, and two in Frederick. The Cumberland store closed in December 2003, and the Hagerstown store closed in August 2005.

In 2004, Giant Eagle acquired and reopened several former Big Bear stores in Ohio (including about six in Columbus, Ohio alone) after Big Bear had gone out of business. The company was also rumored to be considering a relationship with regional department/grocery store chain Meijer in an attempt to expand in the Midwest.^{[citation needed]}

Giant Eagle has the highest share of any supermarket chain in the Pittsburgh area, but has lost market share in recent years due to Wal-Mart's construction of supercenters there. In contrast, in the Columbus market, Giant Eagle has been struggling. As of November 2005, Giant Eagle held about 10 percent market share, compared to 15 percent each for Wal-Mart and Meijer, and 50 percent for Kroger.

[edit] Loyalty program

Like many grocery chains, Giant Eagle ran a trading stamp program, which it named "Profit Sharing Blue Stamps." This program led to a strong sales growth for some time. In the 1960s, Giant Eagle eliminated the program to focus on a simple low-price strategy; and as a result, in the 1970s the company advertised a pledge that it offered the lowest prices of all the grocery stores. In 1995, Giant Eagle introduced "Advantage Card", an electronic loyalty card discount system (already popular in many chains), as a sophisticated version of the obsolete stamp programs. The card was later modified to double as a video rental card for Iggle Video.

[edit] Operations

There are 215 store locations in the United States: 100 in Western Pennsylvania, 110 in Northeast and Eastern Ohio, 3 in Northern West Virginia, and 2 in Western Maryland. Each store carries between 22,000 and 60,000 items, approximately 5,000 of which are manufactured by Giant Eagle.

Giant Eagle offers over twenty-four different departments across its stores. The range of services includes Iggle Video (a store for renting videos, DVDs, and video games), dry cleaning, banks such as US Bank and Citizens Bank, in-store day care, and pharmacies.

The chain has built large prototypes, and it has experimented with many departments unusual to supermarkets. Larger stores feature vast selections of ethnic and organic food, dry cleaning services, Iggle video, drive-thru pharmacies, in-store banking, Eagle's Nest (for daycare purposes while shopping), as well as in-store coffee shops and prepared foods. Prepared foods are also sold at larger GetGo locations that can accommodate a GetGo Kitchen.

Giant Eagle has rebranded two of its stores as Market District, an attempt to woo upscale shoppers. The two stores are located in the upscale communities of Shadyside in Pittsburgh and Bethel Park in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The stores offer free Wi-Fi, Churrasco-style foods, a kosher deli, a smoothie bar and other options not offered at other Giant Eagle locations.^[4][5] Despite the wording of the one report, the Giant Eagle name is still evident on the logos for the rebranded stores.[1]

[edit] GetGo

Giant Eagle created the GetGo brand chain of self-service gas stations - some in conjunction with existing Giant Eagles, but most having their own convenience store. To compete with other local convenience store chains, Giant Eagle has instituted the Fuelperks! program, in which customers are rewarded by saving $0.10 per gallon they buy on a fill-up with every $50 they spend in Giant Eagle using their Advantage card. Most GetGo's are built from the ground-up, though Giant Eagle has bought several existing gas stations that are near Giant Eagle locations and has converted them into GetGo's. Some GetGo's also have a WetGo automatic car wash and a GetGo Kitchen, the latter of which is used to help GetGo compete better with its main rival in Pittsburgh and up-and-coming rival in Cleveland: the more established, fast growing chain Sheetz. There is also one location in West Virginia and one in Maryland.

[edit] Employees

The chain has many workers unionized under United Food & Commercial Workers Local 23 of Pittsburgh, and UFCW Local 880 out of Cleveland. The Frederick, Md. and Columbus, Oh. stores are not unionized, much like some independently owned stores throughout Pennsylvania and the Youngstown, Ohio area.

[edit] Advertising

Giant Eagle uses the slogan "Make every day taste better", after having eliminated their previous slogan, "It takes a giant to make life simple." The former was introduced in August 2001, while the latter was first seen around January 1993. The "It takes a giant to make life simple" slogan spawned the "Fe Fi Fo Fum" commercials, which featured everything from the general store, the produce and deli departments to a spot featuring Jay Bell and Jeff King of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The slogan replaced the previous "A lot you can feel good about...especially the price" motto.

The chain, under pressure from Wal-Mart, has implemented a lower prices campaign throughout its stores, featured on products customers buy most. Giant Eagle has also reconfirmed its commitment to value by selling Topco-produced Valu Time products, which are substantially cheaper than other private-label and name-brand merchandise. These co-exist with the Giant Eagle branded items, which are priced lower than national brands yet higher than Valu Time. Before these brands existed, Giant Eagle generally used Topco's Food Club label as the generic product.

[edit] Criticism of Giant Eagle

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Privately owned Giant Eagle stores have been criticized for their policy against labor unions. A few Giant Eagle stores have also been criticized for the management teams lack of management skills, they have been known to harass ex-workers to the point of banning them from even walking on store property and calling cops when they are seen even if they haven't done anything wrong.

[edit] References

1. ^ 2007 Top 75 North American Food Retailers, Supermarket News, Last accessed February 24, 2007.
2. ^ The Largest Private Companies. Forbes.com (November 9, 2006). Retrieved on 16 November 2006.
3. ^ Top 100 Retailers: The Nation's Retail Power Players (PDF), Stores, July 2006.
4. ^ Giant Eagle woos foodies with 'Market District'. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (June 27, 2006). Retrieved on 16 November 2006.
5. ^ Giant Eagle gets creative with marketing. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (June 28, 2006). Retrieved on 16 November 2006.

[edit] External links

• Giant Eagle's official website
• Market District's official website
• Giant Eagle Optical's official website

Pittsburgh-based Corporations (Within the Pittsburgh Metro Area)
Pittsburgh-based Fortune 500 Corporations: U.S. Steel | PPG | H.J. Heinz | PNC Financial | Mellon Financial | WESCO International
Pittsburgh-based Fortune 1000 Corporations: Allegheny Energy | Consol Energy | Allegheny Technologies | Dick's Sporting Goods | Kennametal | American Eagle Outfitters | Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel | Mylan
Pittsburgh-based Forbes Largest Private Companies: 84 Lumber | GNC | Giant Eagle | Sheetz
Externally owned, regionally based, and other Pittsburgh corporations: American Bridge | Ampco Pittsburgh | Bayer USA | Calgon Carbon | Dollar Bank | DQE Holdings | Eat'n Park | Federated Investors | FedEx Ground | GlaxoSmithKline | Guru.com | Highmark | iGate | Koppers | Michael Baker | Mine Safety Appliances | NOVA Chemicals | Oxford Development | Pittsburgh Brewing Company | Respironics | rue21 | University of Pittsburgh Medical Center | Vivisimo | Wabtec