A supermarket is a self-serviceshop offering a wide variety of food, beverages and household products, organized into sections. Strictly speaking, a supermarket 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 American English usage, however, "grocery store" is often casually used as a synonym for "supermarket". The supermarket retail format first appeared around 1930 in the United States as the culmination of almost two decades of retail innovations, and began to spread to other countries after extensive worldwide publicity in 1956.
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.
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...)
Until the brand's rebranding, there were 194 Countdown stores, with 61 in Auckland. (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...)
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The D.I.C. (originally the Drapery and General Importing Company of New Zealand Ltd) was a New Zealand department store chain, founded in Dunedin by Bendix Hallenstein in 1884.
It was bought out by one of its chief rivals, Arthur Barnett, in the 1980s. The site of the company's former headquarters and flagship store is now occupied by the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, although the façade of the Princes Street entrance still remains in largely original condition. (Full article...)
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Cotton On Group is an Australian retail company known for its fashion, clothing and stationery brands. As of 2020, it has over 1,500 stores in 18 countries employing 22,000 people across eight brands: Cotton On, Cotton On Kids, Cotton On Body, Factorie, Typo, Rubi, Supré, Ceres and Cotton On Foundation.
The design team in the company's Australian office, control the steps of production from merchandise planning to establishing specifications, and production is outsourced to approximately 850 suppliers and factories globally. Cotton On Group sources its materials and products from a number of locations worldwide with the majority of its suppliers being located in China, Bangladesh, India and Australia. It also works with suppliers in Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, the United States and other parts of Asia. These facilities are used for horizontal division of labour, rather than being integrated. (Full article...)
3 Guys (also operating as Gubays) was a New Zealand, Irish and US supermarket chain that operated between 1973 and 2003. (Full article...)
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The Just Group owns and operates a total of seven retail brands: the clothing chains Just Jeans, Jay Jays, Jacqui E, Portmans, Dotti, Peter Alexander Sleepwear, and the stationery chain Smiggle. The group has over 1,000 stores throughout Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom. The group is part of the ASX-listed investment company Premier Investments. (Full article...)
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Harvey Norman is an Australian multinationalretailer of furniture, bedding, computers, communications and consumer electrical products. It mainly operates as a franchise, with the main brand and all company-operated stores owned by ASX-listed Harvey Norman Holdings Limited. As of 2022, there are 304 company-owned and franchised stores in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and South-East Asia operating under the Harvey Norman, Domayne and Joyce Mayne brands in Australia, and under the Harvey Norman brand overseas. (Full article...)
In 2024, Intermarché had 2,496 stores in 4 countries. (Full article...)
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Wesfarmers Limited is an Australian conglomerate, headquartered in Perth, Western Australia. It has interests predominantly in Australia and New Zealand, operating in retail, chemical, fertiliser, industrial and safety products. With revenue of A$43.5 billion in the 2023 financial year, it is one of Australia's largest companies by revenue. Wesfarmers is also one of the largest private employers in Australia, with approximately 107,000 employees.
Wesfarmers was founded in 1914 as a co-operative to provide services and merchandise to Western Australian farmers. It was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 1984 and grew into a major retail conglomerate. (Full article...)
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Champion was a French supermarketchain and owned by the international retailer Carrefour. There were also Champion supermarkets in Belgium, Spain, Poland, Greece, Turkey, Argentina and Brazil. Champion was the second-largest supermarket chain in France in 2008, achieving an annual turnover of €12.2 billion. The chain operated more than 1,000 stores and employed 60,000 people.
As of September 2013, all Champion stores were rebranded as Carrefour Market, under the brand name Carrefour Market-Mestdagh Group. (Full article...)
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Harvey Norman is an Australian multinationalretailer of furniture, bedding, computers, communications and consumer electrical products. It mainly operates as a franchise, with the main brand and all company-operated stores owned by ASX-listed Harvey Norman Holdings Limited. As of 2022, there are 304 company-owned and franchised stores in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and South-East Asia operating under the Harvey Norman, Domayne and Joyce Mayne brands in Australia, and under the Harvey Norman brand overseas. (Full article...)
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Haywrights was a New Zealand department store chain that was founded in 1929 and eventually grew to be one of the largest department store chains in New Zealand. (Full article...)
There are 84 Mitre 10 member stores around New Zealand, including 19 in Auckland. Together, the members employ more than 8000 staff. (Full article...)
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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. 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...)
The company is publicly listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX : GXH). It provides support to 345 Life and Unichem pharmacies throughout New Zealand, with equity in around a quarter of them. It also has a Medical Division, which provides complete family healthcare services through GP and accident and medical centers, with most operating under the brand of "The Doctors". The company has 63 medical centres throughout New Zealand. (Full article...)
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Retail Apparel Group is an Australian and New Zealand clothing retail company, wholly owned by the Foschini Group. The company operates stores under the Tarocash, Connor, yd., Johnny Bigg, Rockwear and AXL+Co brands. (Full article...)
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Aldi (stylised as ALDI) (German pronunciation: [ˈaldiː]ⓘ) is the common company brand name of two Germanmultinational 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 (initially Northern West Germany), headquartered in Essen, and Aldi Süd (initially Southern West Germany), headquartered in neighbouring Mülheim.
In 1962, they introduced the name Aldi (a syllabic abbreviation for "Albrecht Diskont"). 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. Each company is owned and operated independently, but they do have contractual business with one another. (Full article...)
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Lord of the Fries is an Australian casual dining fast food chain. It was originally based in Melbourne, before expanding into other regions. It serves only vegan dishes including loaded fries, veggie burgers, hot dogs and a number of various sides and breakfast items. Due to the menu consisting entirely of plant-based products, all meals from the chain are Kosher and Halal. The restaurants became 100% vegan in 2018. The founders are vegan as are most of the franchisees. (Full article...)
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Veropoulos (Greek: Βερόπουλος) was a large retail group based in Greece until 2016. It held the SPAR retail franchise for Greece, with the franchise still present in the country after Spar's cooperation agreement with the Asteras Group. As a result of bankruptcy, Veropoulos was bought in 2016 by the Metro Group, which re-branded the stores soon after as My Market stores. In Crete, Veropoulos operated stores under the name of Chalkiadakis. Outside Greece, Veropoulos operated supermarkets in the North Macedonia as Vero, and in Serbia as SuperVero. The company was established in 1973, when the first Veropoulos supermarket opened in Athens. As of 2012, the company owned 185 stores in Greece, 10 stores in the North Macedonia and six hypermarkets in Serbia. In Greece, Veropoulos was the fourth-biggest supermarket chain in terms of market share. The firm belonged to the Veropoulos family who are also the founders of the company. (Full article...)
... that South African president Jacob Zuma requested a tour of a Sainsbury's supermarket during his state visit to the United Kingdom in 2010?
... that during a 1989 visit to the United States, Boris Yeltsin said that "there would be a revolution" if the average Soviet citizen knew of the quality of grocery stores in the United States?
... that food was left to rot outside after the supermarket Supie went out of business?
... that the rapper Jords did not know his father was a musician until a chance encounter in a British supermarket?
BritishsupermarketchainMorrisons announces that it will permanently close 52 cafés and 17 stores as part of cost-cutting measures, with the loss of at least 365 jobs expected. (BBC News)
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