ShopRite has long been a major name in New Jersey supermarkets, but recall that in 1975, the cooperative was reeling from the loss of Supermarkets General, which in 1968 had split off and become Pathmark. It, of course, would go on to more than recover from the loss, but in 1975 the cooperative was definitely still trying to regain members and market share. In the metro New York market, by the mid-1970s, Pathmark was near the market leader, which it would become by the end of the decade (and then, if I'm not mistaken, lose the title to ShopRite in the late 1980s)..png)
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In 1975, ShopRites were located in Hillside (where the current one is), Clark (replaced by the existing store in the 90s), Millburn (which recently went through a renovation), Union (now Second Avenue since the store moved to Route 22), and Colonia -- although I'm not sure about whether that's before or after it was a Stop & Shop (later Foodtown and now The Fresh Grocer). Although ShopRite still has a large presence around the Elizabeth area, including an Elizabeth store that opened in 1991, tomorrow's chain has been long since gone from the region -- and gone entirely.
Are those stores the same owner? Or were these newspaper ads placed by Wakefern?
ReplyDeleteClark is (from a previous post on here) one of the three stores in NJ that is SRS (aka Wakefern subsidiary) owned, so it is possible that they had others back then as well? Though Millburn (also from the link) is shown opening in 1976 and being something else before, so that makes it unclear.
DeleteTo add, it's interesting that the Clark store listed was also an Acme at one point, given that the building is now almost exactly in the middle between the current ShopRite and the former A&P, which of course is now an Acme ;)
And, of course that Colonia one, having been ShopRite, Stop & Shop, Foodtown and now Fresh Grocer, which of course is supplied by... Wakefern!
No actual knowledge here, but there is still a Stop & Shop down that street a bit (technically Edison, but about 500 numbers away), which would make it seem logical that they came in after ShopRite, though of course that is not a guarantee either :)
Billy, the ShopRite of Millburn opened (as a ShopRite) on December 11, 1974. (I ascertained this bit of information using Newspapers.com.) More history about the supermarket can be found in a comment of mine that appears underneath the following blog post of Zachary's:
Deletehttps://www.marketreportblog.com/2023/10/update-shoprite-millburn-nj.html
In my same comment, I also mentioned that ShopRite's logo changed on or around July 27, 1975. The above advertisement (in this blog post) stated that its prices were effective through July 19, 1975. Thus, this ad was among the last to feature ShopRite's original logo.
OK, I was only looking at the link in the original post (which goes to an 8/23 update rather than the 10/23 one), and that is where it says the 1976 date (though it does on the 10/23 one as well, but your comment is there to correct that : ).
DeleteWhoops, yeah I didn't put the most recent post up there in the link -- updated!
DeleteI don't believe the stores were ever under the same ownership, I think those were just the ones within the circulation range of the Daily Journal.
Makes perfect sense, as even though well known on these type of pages, it is still not well known how the company works to the general public (at least if postings on the Albany closings are any indication - I ran out of fingers & toes to count how many people didn't understand that these more recent stores were company owned, while the first time they were Big V member owned - apparently those people didn't realize that the Big V name on the bread meant something ;) ).
DeleteTrue! It's not easy to tell, unless you already know.
DeleteI think the listed stores are only those that are local to the readers of the particular newspaper this ad was in.
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked for Norkus in the 90s, we would occasionally have customers come in with store coupons from Food Circus Foodtown stores, which ran different ads than we did. We always honored the coupons.
That's interesting -- thanks for adding that!
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