Food Lion LLC is a grocery store company headquartered in Salisbury, North
Carolina, that operates more than 1,100 supermarkets in 11 of the South-Eastern
United States under the Food Lion banner. With approximately 48,000
employees, Food Lion LLC is the largest subsidiary of Delhaize Group which
acquired it in 1974. History
Food Lion was founded in 1957 in Salisbury, North Carolina as Food Town
by Wilson Smith, Ralph Ketner, and Brown Ketner. The Food Town chain was acquired
by the Belgium-based Delhaize Group grocery company in 1974.
The Food Lion name was adopted in 1983; as Food Town expanded into Virginia, the
chain encountered several stores called Foodtown in the Richmond area. Expansion
into Maryland would have been a bigger problem since about 100 independent but
affiliated stores were called Food Town. Because Delhaize had a lion in its logo,
Food Town had asked to use it on product labels and new store signs. Ralph Ketner
realized "lion" needed only two new letters and the movement of another in
the chain's signs. On December 12, 1982, Ketner announced the name change to
"Food Lion", and by the end of March 1983, all stores had been rebranded. The
name change, while puzzling for American customers, made economic and historic
sense as Delhaize was once known as "Delhaize Le Lion".
Throughout the 1980s, Food Lion expanded throughout the Mid-Atlantic and
Southeastern United States. The company continued their expansion throughout the
late 1980s, opening hundreds of stores in existing markets such as the
Carolinas and Virginia, and entering new markets such as Georgia, West Virginia,
and Maryland. In the early 1990s, Food Lion stores
appeared in new markets such as Delaware and southern Pennsylvania; Orlando,
Florida; Finksburg, Maryland and Westminster, Maryland
In 1993, Food Lion agreed to pay $16.2 million to settle claims that they
violated federal laws regulating unpaid overtime, minimum wage and child labor,
according to the U.S. Department of Labor. In the agreement, which at the
time was the largest settlement ever from a private employer accused of
violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, the grocery chain agreed to ensure that
all employees would be well-informed about their rights. Additionally, the
Labor Department said Food Lion's top management provided assurances that no
retaliatory action would be taken against employees who filed complaints
about unpaid overtime or other potential FLSA violations.
On January 7, 1994, Delhaize announced the first major round of store closings
in what would become a yearly event. The stores to be closed included 47 of its
brand-new stores in Texas and Oklahoma as well as stores in Florida, Georgia,
North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia.
Beginning in 2003, Food Lion became active in "market renewals" in which
every year Food Lion picks certain cities in their operating area where
they remodel stores and update the product offerings. In 2006, Food Lion
advanced their market renewals program by using demographic and geographic data
to figure out whether certain stores should be branded as Food Lion, Bloom,
or Bottom Dollar. If the data supported that an already existing Food Lion was
adequate for a certain community, the location would simply be remodeled.
Should the data support otherwise, the Food Lion store would be remodeled and
re-branded as either Bloom or Bottom Dollar.
Food Lion stores can currently be found in Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky,
Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and
West Virginia. The Delhaize Group also owns Hannaford Brothers which operates
grocery stores in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and upstate New
York. In 2012, they exited the Florida market period when all the Food Lions
that shut down during that time in the Southeast.
= International stores = Food Lion spent seven years attempting
to establish a presence in Bangkok, Thailand. Operated locally by Bel-Thai
Supermarket Co, in 2004 it withdrew from the country, selling all branches to
Tops Supermarkets. Banners
= Food Lion = Food Lion is the namesake concept for
Food Lion LLC. = Bloom =
Bloom was Food Lion's upscale grocery model that opened on May 26, 2004.
As of December 2009, there were 65 Bloom stores in North Carolina, South
Carolina, Maryland and Virginia. On March 14, 2011, Delhaize announced
that all Bloom supermarkets in North and South Carolina would close or be
converted to the Food Lion banner. On January 11, 2012, Delhaize announced
that the Bloom brand would be discontinued and that all Bloom
supermarkets will either convert to Food Lion or permanently close.
= Bottom Dollar Food = Bottom Dollar Food was Food Lion's
discount grocery model that focuses on offering a limited-selection of both
national brands and private label products. These stores have no bakeries
or delis and more items are prepackaged. Customers buy the bags used to sack
their own groceries at Bottom Dollar Food. Stores also use alternative
display and stocking techniques such as cut cases on shelves, using pallets and
dump bins to reduce costs. Food Lion opened the first Bottom Dollar Food
model in High Point, North Carolina on September 21, 2005.
As of December 2009, Bottom Dollar Food had 28 stores in North Carolina,
Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. In January 2012, Delhaize announced that it
would close six Bottom Dollar stores and convert 22 others to Food Lion
supermarkets as part of a restructuring. In August 2014 it was reported that
Delhaize was putting the entire portfolio of Bottom Dollar Food
locations up for sale. Ultimately Bottom Dollar Food was shuttered and the stores
sold to Aldi by early 2015. = Harveys Supermarket =
Harveys stores are mainly located in rural markets within the Deep South.
As of December 2009, there were 70 Harveys stores in Florida, Georgia, and
South Carolina. In May 2013, All Harveys stores were sold to BI-LO LLC.
= Reid's = Reid's is small chain of stores located
in various rural South Carolina communities, specifically Barnwell,
Orangeburg, Langley, New Ellenton, Batesburg, Walterboro, St. George,
Aiken, Saluda, Cayce, and Hampton. Most of these stores were all formerly
branded as Food Lion stores and continue to carry Food Lion branded goods and use
the Food Lion infrastructure. In May 2013, Reid's was sold along with
its sister supermarket chains Harveys and Sweetbay to BI-LO LLC for $265
million. BI-LO subsequently retired the Reid's name, rebranding the Reid's
stores as BI-LO. Store brand
Delhaize America stores use a common private brand called Home 360. Sister
supermarkets Hannaford and Sweetbay were the last two stores to make the switch,
doing so in 2010 and 2011. The move is designed to simplify the company's
store-brand products line. Food Lion stores have the "My Essentials" brand as
well as the Hannaford brand. At the end of 2014 the "My Essentials" as well as
the Home 360 names were retired and the more traditional "Food Lion" brand name
was used as a replacement. Slogans
"LFPINC": during the Food Town era. Slogan stood for "Lowest Food Prices In
North Carolina". Also used in South Carolina and Virginia stores.
"Extra Low Prices": 1990s–early 2000s "Good Neighbors, Great Prices": early
2000s–2011 "Get Your Lion's Share": 2011/2012–2014
"Easy, fresh and affordable... You can count on Food Lion... Every day":
2014–present "Life's Better with the Lion":
2015–present Primetime Live controversy
In the 1990s, Food Lion gained a degree of notoriety when it was the subject of
an ABC News investigation. ABC had received a tip about unsanitary
practices at Food Lion. Two ABC reporters had posed as Food Lion
employees, and witnessed the unsanitary practices at Food Lion. Much of what
they had seen was videotaped with cameras hidden in wigs that they were
wearing. The footage was then featured in a segment on the news magazine
Primetime Live, in which Food Lion employees described unsanitary
practices, which included bleaching discolored, expired pork with Clorox and
repackaging expired meats with new expiration dates, and the use of nail
polish remover to remove the expiration dates from dairy item packages.
The company responded by suing ABC for fraud, claiming that the ABC employees
misrepresented themselves; for trespassing, because the ABC employees
came on to Food Lion property without permission; and for breach of loyalty,
the ABC employees videotaped non-public areas of the store and revealed internal
company information. During the court battles between Food Lion and ABC, over
40 hours of unused footage were released that helped Food Lion's case. In the
unused footage, two undercover producers are seen trying to encourage violations
of company policy; however, employees resisted and correctly followed sanitary
practices. Food Lion was awarded US$5.5 million by
a jury in 1997. The award was later reduced by a judge to $316,000. The
verdict was then overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit in
Richmond, Virginia. According to the court, even though ABC was wrong to do
what they had done, Food Lion was not suing for defamation, but rather for
tort, as a way to get around the strict First Amendment standards for
defamation. Food Lion did this, because at the time of the lawsuit they were
unable to prove that ABC acted with malice, which would be required to prove
defamation. Lion ads
Starting in 2013, Food Lion ads featured a lion who said, "That's just my two
cents." PETA said the commercials should not use real animals, while the company
assured them the animal was treated well.
See also References
External links Food Lion official website