History of Jewel Osco
Jewel-Osco, a US retail grocery and pharmacy chain, is a subsidiary of SuperValu Inc., a grocery distributor, and retailer. The business was founded in 1899 when Frank Vernon Skiff and Frank Rose founded the Jewel Tea Company to supply condiments from horses to the Chicago area in carts. As the importance of automobiles increased, the company switched from trucks to electric trucks to transport goods in the Midwest. It was established in Illinois in 1903 and was renamed Jewel Companies, Inc. in 1966. The Green River Regulations promulgated in the 1930s banned home delivery, which encouraged the company to enter the retail food business and established Jewel Food Stores, Inc. in 1932 to purchase grocery stores. A business previously owned by Loblaw Groceterias. Jewellery companies flourish in the Midwest and focus on customer service. In 1961, the company expanded to retail pharmacies.
The company's retail stores include Jewel supermarket, Osco pharmacy, and White Hen Pantry convenience store. After 1983, although most jewellery stores and Osco stores were operated separately, they were all built under one roof. The company was renamed Jewel Companies, Inc. and was acquired by American Stores Company, a drug and grocery retailer, in 1984. In 1999, Albertsons acquired the assets of American Stores (including Lucky Stores, Jewel, Acme Markets, Osco, and Sav-on Drugs). After the grocery distributor and retailer SuperValu Inc. acquired Albertson's in 2006, Jewel and Osco became SuperValu's wholly-owned subsidiaries. In 2010, Jewel and Osco began to operate the unified entity Jewel-Osco formally.
Jewel Osco Express
In 1997, Albertsons experimented, adding a gas pump and a small convenience store in front of a store in Eagle, Idaho. Due to the experiment's success, Albertsons decided to extend the concept to all stores that can support the idea.
After Albertsons acquired American Stores in 1999, Albertsons hoped to extend the concept of Albertsons Express to the previous American Stores chain. The first Jewel Express opened in October 2000 in front of Jewel-Osco in South Elgin. To increase revenue in 2009, Supervalu expanded the convenience store, enhanced the Express concept, increased marketing links with major stores, and even added car wash services. This change does not help Supersuper's bottom line, so Supervalu announced in 2011 that it would withdraw from the fuel business. It will sell or close all gas stations it received when buying Albertsons, including the 29 Jewel Express gas stations it received. The announcement also announced that 27 Jewel Express locations would be sold to Circle K's parent company Alimentation Couche-Tard. All remaining unsold areas will be closed, and some of the new Circle K locations will be paired with the Shell fuel brand.
Jewel Osco Today
Jewel-Osco employs more than 45,000 associates. Its customer base gave a 45 per cent share of the grocery market in Chicago and trailed by the Safeway Inc.-owned Dominick's chain (ranking 2nd at 15 per cent) before its closure. Customers from 80% of all households in the Chicago metropolitan area visit a Jewel-Osco shop at least once a month. On January 10, 2013, SuperValu declared the sale of Jewel food shops to Cerberus Capital Management in a $3.3 billion deal. The deal closed on March 21, 2013.
Jewel Osco Stores
Current stores
- Albertsons LLC owns these Jewel-Osco stores:
- Jewel-Osco and Jewel shops (168 shops), established in Chicago metro area, including northwestern Indiana.
- Jewel-Osco and Jewel shops (10 shops), placed in Central and Western Illinois, Eastern Iowa.
Former stores
- These former Jewel-Osco or Jewel stores are presently owned by Niemann Foods and were rebranded as County Market
- Jewel-Osco (2 stores) located in Springfield, Illinois (initially acquired by Cerberus)
- All freestanding Osco drugstores (90 stores in Missouri, Kansas, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin) were sold to CVS and rebranded as CVS/pharmacy.
- The two locations in southern Wisconsin, located just north of the border in Kenosha and Racine, have closed.
Organizational philosophy at Jewel Osco
A book written by Jewel's senior leader, The Jewel Concepts, in 1972, emphasized good citizenship in the community, "watching the horizon," and sponsoring young people. The retired Jewel-Osco chairman Don Perkins reflected in an online article by the Illinois Retailers Association: "Jewelry has a people-oriented tradition." One of these traditions is in the form of a "first assistant" management philosophy. Every senior manager should regard himself as someone who serves the employees he or she manages.
At the store level, this means that the manager will be the employee's "first assistant" by making personal contact with employees and arousing personal interest, solving problems, proposing solutions, and using flexibility to meet employees' concerns best. Then, the responsibility of the floor staff is to act like the customer's "first assistant." When this practice was rare, Jewel also made progress in establishing partnerships with suppliers.
Jewel-Osco delivery service
Jewel-Osco’s grocery delivery site is straightforward to use — you can shop by aisle precisely as you would in a regular store. You can also search by keyword, typing things like “banana,” “peach juice,” or by brands, like “O Organics.” After narrowing your search down to a specific product category or brand, you can also sort the list by most popular purchases, in descending or ascending order to look for the best prices for the items you’re interested in. In sorting the list by price, you can find brands on sale. While you cannot use paper manufacturer coupons with grocery delivery, Jewel-Osco offers many electronic coupons that delivery customers can take advantage of.