Safeway Inc. is North America’s third largest supermarket chain, with, as of December 29, 2007, 1743 stores located throughout the western and central United States and western Canada. It also operates some stores in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern Seaboard. The company is headquartered in Pleasanton, California. Supermarket News ranked Safeway No. 4 in the 2007 “Top 75 North American Food Retailers” based on 2006 fiscal year estimated sales of $40.5 billion. Based on 2005 revenue, Safeway is the tenth-largest retailer in the United States.
Founded American Falls, Idaho (1915)
Headquarters Pleasanton, California
Key people Steve Burd, CEO & Chairman, Philip Lee, Supervisor
Industry Retail (Grocery)
Products bakery, dairy, deli, dry cleaning, frozen foods, fuel, grocery, lottery, frozen meat, pharmacy, photographic processing, produce, seafood, snacks, liquor, flowers, and Western UnionTM
Revenue 42.3 billion USD (2007)
Employees 201,000 (2007)
Website www.safeway.com
www.safeway.ca
History
Seelig and Skaggs Merger
Sam Seelig Company was founded in April 1912 by Sam Seelig who opened a single grocery store in Los Angeles at the corner of Pico and Figueroa streets[4]. The chain had grown to 71 stores by 1922.[5] Sam Seelig left the company in 1924 to enter the real estate business, forming Sam Seelig Realty. As a result of Seelig’s departure, the company held a contest in 1925 to develop a new name, the result of which was Safeway.[6] The original slogan was “an admonition and an invitation” to “Drive the Safeway; Buy the Safeway.”  By 1926 Safeway Stores had 322 stores centered in Southern California.
The Safeway chain expanded further in a merger engineered by Charles Merrill of Merrill Lynch on July 1, 1926 of Safeway with 673 stores from Skaggs United Stores of Idaho and Skaggs Cash Stores of California. The merger immediately created the largest chain of grocery stores west of the Mississippi.[8] Charles Merrill later left Merrill Lynch, for a period of time, to run Safeway in the 1930s. At the time of the merger, the company was headquartered in Reno, Nevada, but in 1929, Safeway relocated its headquarters to a former grocery warehouse in Oakland, California. Safeway headquarters moved into Emil Hegstrom’s Mutual Creamery Building on East 14th Street and remained there until the move to Pleasanton.
Skaggs Stores (see Skaggs Companies) had its start in 1915, when Marion B. Skaggs purchased his father’s grocery store in American Falls, Idaho, for $1,089. The chain, which operated as two separate businesses, Skaggs’ Cash Stores and Skaggs United Stores, grew quickly, and Skaggs enlisted the help of his five brothers to help grow the network of stores, which reached 191 by 1920. On completion of the Skaggs/Safeway merger, M.B. Skaggs became the Chief Executive of the business. Skaggs retired from the Safeway board of directors in 1941.
Expansion
Safeway, with financing supplied by Merrill Lynch, then began aggressively acquiring numerous regional grocery store chains in a rollup strategy. Early acquisitions included significant parts of Piggly Wiggly chain as part of the break up of that company by Merrill Lynch and Wall Street. Safeway acquired H.G. Chaffee of Southern California (84 grocery stores); MacMarr (a California chain also assembled by Charles Merrill); the Sanitary Grocery Company of Washington D.C. (including 49 Piggly Wiggly stores), Daniel Reeves of New York (498 grocery stores); National Grocery of New Jersey (84 grocery stores); the Arizona Grocery Company and its subsidiary, Pay’n Takkit Stores; Newway Stores in El Paso, Texas; Sun Grocery in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Bird Stores of Kansas City (including 224 Piggly Wiggly stores). The company also acquired the 91 west coast Piggly Wiggly Pacific Company stores and the 174 stores of Piggly Wiggly Western States Company. Most acquired chains retained their own names until the mid 1930s.
The number of stores peaked at 3,527 in 1931, when the numerous smaller grocery stores began being replaced with larger supermarket stores.
Hegstrom’s, a chain of Oakland, California stores controlled by Mutual Creamery owner Emil Hegstrom, was acquired by Safeway in the mid-1950s. The company’s New York operations were sold in 1961 to Finast.
International Growth
International expansion was an early part of Safeway’s growth. The company expanded into Canada in 1929 through the acquisition of nine stores (which became Canada Safeway); into the United Kingdom in 1962 with the acquisition of the 11-store John Gardner Limited (which became Safeway plc); into Australia in 1963 with the acquisition of three Pratt Supermarkets (which became Safeway Australia); and into Germany in 1964 with the acquisition of two Big Bār Basar (Big Bear Bazaar) stores. The company also had operations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in a licensing and management agreement with the Tamimi Group during the 1980s. In 1980, Safeway acquired the 31-store Jack the Slasher chain in Queensland, Australia, and in 1981 acquired 49% of Mexican retailer Casa Ley.

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