is a
Grocery Store with stores located in
Pennsylvania ,
Ohio ,
West Virginia , and
Maryland ,
USA . Giant Eagle was founded in 1918 in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and has continued to grow. It was the 34th largest
Privately-held Corporation , as determined by
Forbes in 2005.
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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 through the 1930s and 1940s, even through both the
Great Depression and
World War II . In the 1950s, the average size of a grocery store was 15,000 ft&
2.
Like many grocery chains, Giant Eagle ran a
Trading Stamp program, which they called "Profit Sharing Blue Stamps", leading to strong sales growth for a time. They eliminated the program in the 1960s to focus on a simple low-price strategy, and in the 1970s advertised a pledge that it had the lowest prices of all the grocery stores.
In 1995, Giant Eagle introduced "Advantage Card", an electronic
Loyalty Card discount system 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.
In 2004, Giant Eagle acquired and reopened several former
Big Bear stores in Ohio (including about six in
Columbus, Ohio alone) when Big Bear went out of business. The company is also rumored to be considering a relationship with regional department/grocery store chain
Meijer in an attempt to expand in the Midwest.
Currently there are 216 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 individual store carries between 22,000 and 60,000 items, approximately 5,000 of which are made by Giant Eagle, showing the success of this corporation.
Giant Eagle offers over twenty-four different departments across its stores. The range of services include Iggle Video, a store for renting
Videos ,
DVDs , and
Video Games , dry cleaning services, banks such as
US Bank and
Citizens Bank , an in-house day care, and pharmacies.
Recently, Giant Eagle has created the .
The chain started in the Pittsburgh area, and maintains both corporately owned and independently owned stores. The chain entered Cleveland in the 1980s, then aggressively expanded by acquiring the Stop N Shop stores in the area. Giant Eagle emerged as one of the dominant supermarket chains in Northeastern Ohio, competing mainly against the New York based Tops. 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 in the immediate Pittsburgh area. In contrast, in the
Columbus market, Giant Eagle has struggled. As of
November 2005 , Giant Eagle held about 10% market share, compared to 15% each for
Wal-Mart and
Meijer , and 50% for
Kroger .
The chain is using the slogan "Make every day taste better", after their previous slogan of "It takes a giant to make life simple". The former was introduced in August 2001 while the latter was first seen around January 1993. "It takes a giant to make life simple" spawned the "Fe Fi Fo Fum" commercials, which featured everything from the general store to 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".
Giant Eagle purchased independently-owned County Market stores, giving them a replacement store in Somerset, PA, a new store in Johnstown, PA, as well as their first Maryland stores, 1 in Cumberland, 1 in Hagerstown, and 2 in Frederick. The Cumberland store closed in December 2003, and the Hagerstown store closed in August 2005.
The chain has many workers unionized, under United Food & Commercial Workers Local 23 of Pittsburgh, UFCW Local 880 out of Cleveland, and UFCW Local 400 of Washington, DC, which represents workers in West Virginia stores. The Frederick, MD stores are not unionized, much like some independently owned stores throughout Pennsylvania.
The chain has built large prototypes, and 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.
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 less than national brands yet more than Valu Time. Before these brands existed, Giant Eagle generally used Topco's Food Club label as the generic product.
