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I had read the aricle on the demise of the Penn Fruit stores in philadelphia
and I had heard on a local show called the "Irv Homer Show" that some of the former PF stores became O&O's ( IGA stores owned and operated by store employees) and were supplied by a local IGA wholesaler (Wetterau/Supervalu?) Is anyone familiar with these stores?

u-save wrote:I had read the aricle on the demise of the Penn Fruit stores in philadelphia
and I had heard on a local show called the "Irv Homer Show" that some of the former PF stores became O&O's ( IGA stores owned and operated by store employees) and were supplied by a local IGA wholesaler (Wetterau/Supervalu?) Is anyone familiar with these stores?

The only O&O/IGA Supermarket that I remember was located at Acamdey & Byberry Road, in Philadelphia. This O&o was origally an A&P Supermarket that closed in 1982, along with the entire A&P Philadelphia region stores, before the Philadelphia grocery union put up a big fight that resulted in A&P creating the "Super Fresh Fod Market" division in 1983. This store was not included in the opening of Super Fresh.

This store closed in the late 1990's, and has since been demolished and replaced by a new Rite Aid Pharmacy and Wawa Food Market and Gas Station

The o/o IGA stores in Philadelphia as memory serves, were an a clone of the original Super
Fresh contract. In place of Hourly wages and benefits previously held by union help under the A&P banner, the employees would recieve a bonus and a vote over some store level decisions.
The o/o Banner were old A&P stores that did not reopen as Super Fresh units. The union
used some pension monies to back the employees of these stores to achieve financing to run these stores. The bank in turn made them higher a profesional store manager to run each unit
Wetarauw( now Super Value} agreed to supply these stores with the IGA banner. I believe that four stores opened under this program.
Why did this happen? You must understand the times. Philadelphia and its Unions had just lost most of the A@Ps, Pantry Pride, and Pen Fruit Stores. The economy was a mess, Box stores were popular. Former Food Fair Managers such as Bill Cook Senior, were passing the hat among their employes to buy groceries from Fleming under the Thriftway Banner or from
Frank Ford Quaker under its Shop & Bag Banner. These stores once union more then likely reopened non union. This was an experiment to keep up Union presence in a market that out side of Acme, was becoming a non union market fast.
The stores not any older then the Stores reopened as Super Fresh did ok for a few years
but the money to renovate or to open replacement units that was available to Super Fresh did not exist, much like the majority of the Thriftway, IGA, and Shop & Bag Stores in Philadelphia they went the way of The DODO Bird.

and i would say it's not too long off that we'll see the end of the superfresh banner as well, because most of them are going to become pathmarks in the near future.

philside92 wrote:and i would say it's not too long off that we'll see the end of the superfresh banner as well, because most of them are going to become pathmarks in the near future.

In Philadelphia, the "Superfresh" banner will a thing of the past, with the bulk of them becoming "Pathmark Sav-A-center", but new Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and areas of Pennsylvania outside of the Philadelphia area will still have "Superfresh", unless A&P decides to rename them all to either "A&P Fresh" or "Waldbaum's Fresh"

as far as i remember, they are only keeping 4 stores as superfresh.

maynesG wrote:The o/o IGA stores in Philadelphia as memory serves, were an a clone of the original Super
Fresh contract. In place of Hourly wages and benefits previously held by union help under the A&P banner, the employees would recieve a bonus and a vote over some store level decisions.
The o/o Banner were old A&P stores that did not reopen as Super Fresh units. The union
used some pension monies to back the employees of these stores to achieve financing to run these stores. The bank in turn made them higher a profesional store manager to run each unit
Wetarauw( now Super Value} agreed to supply these stores with the IGA banner. I believe that four stores opened under this program.
Why did this happen? You must understand the times. Philadelphia and its Unions had just lost most of the A@Ps, Pantry Pride, and Pen Fruit Stores. The economy was a mess, Box stores were popular. Former Food Fair Managers such as Bill Cook Senior, were passing the hat among their employes to buy groceries from Fleming under the Thriftway Banner or from
Frank Ford Quaker under its Shop & Bag Banner. These stores once union more then likely reopened non union. This was an experiment to keep up Union presence in a market that out side of Acme, was becoming a non union market fast.
The stores not any older then the Stores reopened as Super Fresh did ok for a few years
but the money to renovate or to open replacement units that was available to Super Fresh did not exist, much like the majority of the Thriftway, IGA, and Shop & Bag Stores in Philadelphia they went the way of The DODO Bird.

Do you or anyone know what the other three A&P stores beside the Acamdey & Byberry Road location that became O&O/IGA?

MikeRa wrote:

u-save wrote:I had read the aricle on the demise of the Penn Fruit stores in philadelphia
and I had heard on a local show called the "Irv Homer Show" that some of the former PF stores became O&O's ( IGA stores owned and operated by store employees) and were supplied by a local IGA wholesaler (Wetterau/Supervalu?) Is anyone familiar with these stores?

The only O&O/IGA Supermarket that I remember was located at Acamdey & Byberry Road, in Philadelphia. This O&o was origally an A&P Supermarket that closed in 1982, along with the entire A&P Philadelphia region stores, before the Philadelphia grocery union put up a big fight that resulted in A&P creating the "Super Fresh Fod Market" division in 1983. This store was not included in the opening of Super Fresh.

This store closed in the late 1990's, and has since been demolished and replaced by a new Rite Aid Pharmacy and Wawa Food Market and Gas Station

Super Fresh was created in 1982, the same year most A&Ps closed. An example of an early original Super Fresh was the one in West Chester that opened in 1982. It closed in 2001, then became a Clemens, then most of Clemens was sold to Giant (ironically, some Clemens became Super Fresh).

philside92 wrote:as far as i remember, they are only keeping 4 stores as superfresh.

There is still 16 superfresh stores open in Pennsylvania

The former A&P in Lambertville, NJ was an O&O for over 20 years. Like many Acmes, a few A&Ps, and one Penn Fruit building, the store has become a CVS.

Here is a list of the 3 O&O/IGA that were former A&P:

• Philadelphia, PA: Acamdey Road & Byberry Road (former A&P Centennial/Colonial). Demolished and replaced by Rite Aid
• Glenside, PA: 933 Easton Road (former A&P Centennial/Colonial). Today is Aldi
• Lambertville, NJ: 1 Cherry Street (former A&P Centennial/Colonial). Today is CVS/pharmacy