Central Grocers Cooperative

Type: Private - Cooperative
On the web: http://www.central-grocers.com
Employees: 2,300

In a city of big stores, Central Grocers helps neighborhood markets stay afloat. The member-owned cooperative wholesale food distributor supplies food items and general merchandise to more than 200 independent retail grocery stores in the Chicago area and in the northwest region of Indiana. It distributes products under both national brands and its own Centrella brand. The co-op also operates a number of stores under such banners as Strack & Van Til, Town & Country, Key Market, and the low-cost Ultra Foods chain. Central Grocers was founded in 1917.

Key numbers for fiscal year ending July, 2008:
Sales: $1,197.2M

Officers:
President and CEO: James (Jim) Denges
CFO: Tim Kubis
CTO: Mark Brandes

Competitors:
Certified Grocers Midwest
Dearborn Wholesale Grocers
Kroger

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Central Grocers Cooperative, founded in 1917, is a retailers' cooperative based in Joliet, Illinois near Chicago. It distributes both brand name and private label goods branded as Centrella and Silver Cup Value Buy to about 240 member-owner grocery stores in Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

It owns several grocery stores in Indiana and Illinois—former members of the cooperative that were acquired by the cooperative, including: Strack and Van Til, Town & Country, Key Market, and Ultra Foods. It also purchased a number of former Cub Foods locations in the Chicago area, some of which it operates as Strack and Van Til and Ultra Foods, and others are operated by a member.

External links

• Central Grocers website

References

• Smaller grocers circling Chicago: Stores open in outlying towns; are burbs next? by H. Lee Murphy in Crain's Chicago Business, 2 16, 2006

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