Associated Food Stores is an American retailers cooperative that supplies nearly 450 independently owned retail supermarkets throughout Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Nevada, and Wyoming.

Description

The headquarters for Associated Foods is located at 1850 W 2100 South in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The company's president and CEO is David Rice. He replaced Bob Obray following Bob's passing in August 2022. It reported over US$1.6 billion (equivalent to $ billion in ) in sales during fiscal year 2007 and is currently the fifty-sixth largest grocery retailer in the country by volume with 23% of its total sales coming from its corporate stores.

History

Associated Food Stores was founded in 1940 by Donald P. Lloyd, president of the Utah Retail Grocers Association along with 34 Utah retailers. Concerned with the effect that large corporate stores would have on small independent retailers, he felt the only way these small businesses could survive is if they united and faced the competition as one, therefore increasing their collective buying power. He convinced 34 stores to donate $300 (equivalent to $ in ) to help build an independent and "associated" warehouse. In 1999, Associated Food Stores purchased Utah grocery store chain Macey's. In August 2017, Macey's broke with 70-year tradition by deciding to open some of their stores on Sundays. In 2009, Associated Food Stores purchased 34 Albertsons stores in Utah from Supervalu Inc. The stores were renamed Associated Fresh Market (more commonly known as just "Fresh Market"). As of June 2017, however, only 17 of the originally purchased locations were still under the Fresh Market banner, the rest having been either closed or sold. In 2017, two Fresh Market locations in Murray and Holladay were re-branded as Macey's. As of 2021, three Macey's locations have closed: the Logan (400 North), Clinton, and the Midvale/Sandy locations. In 2022, a former Fresh Market in American Fork became a Macey's.

Corporate stores

As well as supplying independent grocers, Associated Food Stores also owns several corporate stores under five different names, operating a total of 41 locations.

Other stores

Popular stores owned and/or supplied by Associated Food Stores:

Western Family

Associated Food Stores was a primary distributor of the popular store brand Western Family owned by Western Family Foods before being replaced by Food Club and other Topco brands. This also includes Better Buy, Shurfine, Shursavings, and Marketchoice brands.