The Kroger Co.
Grocery Retail & SupermarketsFounded 1883- Updated June 2026
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Last reviewed: June 2026
CorpDigest
The Kroger Co.
Company History
Founded 1883 in Cincinnati, Ohio
Last reviewed: 2026-06-03 · By Swet Parvadiya
Barney Kroger was 23 years old when he founded the Great Western Tea Company in Cincinnati in 1883. He opened his first store at 66 Pearl Street with $372 he had saved working as a traveling tea salesman. The name changed to the Kroger Grocery and Baking Company in 1902, reflecting an expansion into baked goods — one of the first grocery chains to integrate its own bakery rather than buying from outside suppliers.
Kroger went public in 1916. Barney Kroger, who had built the chain from a single storefront to one of the largest grocery operations in the Midwest, sold his entire stake in 1928 for $28 million. He died in 1938 having watched the company he built continue to expand without him; at the time of his death, the Kroger chain operated hundreds of stores across the United States.
The 1972 introduction of electronic scanning at checkout was a pivot point. Kroger was among the earliest grocery chains to deploy barcode scanning technology at scale, and the transaction data it began accumulating from that point forward became the foundation for the loyalty card programs and data analytics capabilities that now form the company's most durable competitive advantage.
The 1999 acquisition of Fred Meyer Stores for approximately $8 billion brought superstore format capabilities and a geographic footprint in the Pacific Northwest and Intermountain West. Harris Teeter followed in 2014, adding premium positioning in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast. The Roundy's acquisition in 2015 added the Pick 'n Save, Metro Market, and Mariano's banners in the Midwest. Each acquisition expanded the data pool and the private-label revenue base, compounding advantages that Kroger built across more than 140 years.
Barney Kroger founded the Great Western Tea Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, on April 3, 1883, with $372 in borrowed capital—the seed investment for what would become the largest traditional supermarket chain in American history. His commercial philosophy centered on the elimination of middlemen through direct sourcing from manufacturers and growers, a competitive insight that enabled lower prices and higher quality than competing merchants who operated through wholesalers. Kroger expanded aggressively through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, incorporating his name into the business through the 1902 rechristening as the Kroger Grocery and Baking Co. And taking the company public in 1916 on the Cincinnati Stock Exchange. He pioneered in-house bread baking as a form of vertical integration, establishing a precedent for the company's extensive private-label manufacturing operations. In 1928, at age 67, Kroger sold his personal stake in the business to a trust led by Lehman Brothers for approximately $28 million, equivalent to over $500 million in 2025 dollars. He died on July 7, 1938, having established the commercial infrastructure for a company that would serve American consumers for well over a century after his retirement.
Barney Kroger opens the Great Western Tea Company at 66 Pearl Street in Cincinnati, Ohio, with $372 in borrowed capital. The store immediately establishes the direct-sourcing, quality-focus model that will define the company for generations.
Kroger renames his company, incorporating his surname into the brand and expanding into in-house bread baking—one of the earliest examples of vertical integration in American grocery retail. The bakery model enables lower costs and fresher product than competitors purchasing from independent bakeries.
Kroger lists the company on the Cincinnati Stock Exchange, raising capital to fund regional expansion. At the time of listing, the company operates over 200 stores across the Midwest.
Founder Barney Kroger sells his personal holdings to a Lehman Brothers-led trust for approximately $28 million, retiring from active management at age 67 and freeing the company to pursue professional management under new leadership.
Kroger becomes one of the first grocery retailers to test electronic bar code scanning at checkout, participating in the early trials of what will become the universal UPC scanning system—a technology that revolutionizes grocery operations industry-wide.
Kroger celebrates its 100th anniversary with annual revenues reaching approximately $11 billion, cementing its position as one of the largest food retailers in the United States and demonstrating the power of its multi-decade expansion and acquisition strategy.
Facing a hostile takeover attempt by the Haft family, Kroger executes a dramatic recapitalization that pays a $40-per-share special dividend funded by approximately $4.6 billion in new debt, preserving management's long-term strategic independence at the cost of a decade-long deleveraging process.
Kroger completes its largest acquisition to that date, purchasing Fred Meyer Stores for approximately $13.5 billion—a deal that added 800 stores across the Pacific Northwest and Mountain West and significantly expanded Kroger's multi-department and jewelry retail capabilities.
Kroger acquires Harris Teeter Supermarkets for approximately $2.5 billion, gaining a premium grocery banner with significant Southeast and Mid-Atlantic presence, strong fresh food reputation, and a loyal upscale customer base that expands Kroger's demographic reach.
Kroger announces a strategic partnership with British automated grocery logistics company Ocado, committing to the construction of multiple large-scale automated customer fulfillment centers across the United States—a multi-billion-dollar bet on the eventual profitability of grocery home delivery at scale.
Kroger announces a proposed acquisition of Albertsons Cos. For approximately $24.6 billion, which would have created a grocery entity with more than 5,000 stores and over $200 billion in combined revenues—the most significant proposed transaction in American grocery retail history.
A federal court rules in February 2025 that the Kroger-Albertsons merger would substantially lessen competition in dozens of local grocery markets, blocking the transaction on antitrust grounds and requiring Kroger to absorb approximately $600 million in merger-related costs with no strategic benefit.
Kroger's acquisition of Fred Meyer Stores for approximately $13.5 billion in 1999 was the largest in the company's history at that time and represented a transformative geographic and format expansion. Fred Meyer operated approximately 800 stores across the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, Mountain West, and Mountain States, primarily in large-format multi-department locations selling groceries alongside clothing, electronics, hardware, and jewelry. The deal gave Kroger immediate scale in markets where it had limited or no presence and added a premium multi-department format capability that complemented its supermarket-focused portfolio.
Kroger acquired Matthews, North Carolina-based Harris Teeter Supermarkets for approximately $2.5 billion in January 2014, adding 227 stores across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states and a premium supermarket banner with a strong reputation for fresh food quality, store cleanliness, and customer service. Harris Teeter operated in markets including Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, the Washington D.C. Metro area, Richmond, and coastal Carolina markets where Kroger had limited or no presence. The acquisition provided immediate scale in high-growth Sunbelt markets with attractive demographic profiles.
Kroger's acquisition of Roundy's Inc. For approximately $800 million in 2015 added three distinct grocery banners: Pick 'n Save and Metro Market in Wisconsin, and the premium Mariano's banner in the Chicago metropolitan area. The deal represented Kroger's entry into the Chicago market—one of the largest U.S. Metro areas in which it had lacked significant presence—as well as a meaningful expansion in Wisconsin, where Pick 'n Save was the leading conventional supermarket banner. Mariano's, positioned as a premium urban grocery experience, provided Kroger with a format for urban and affluent suburban markets that differed from its traditional suburban supermarket model.
Kroger's acquisition of Vitacost.com, an online natural health and organic food retailer, for approximately $280 million in 2014 represented an early strategic move to build digital commerce capabilities at a time when most traditional grocery retailers were still treating e-commerce as a peripheral experiment. Vitacost operated as a pure-play online retailer selling vitamins, supplements, natural foods, and health products through its website, with a customer base concentrated in the health-conscious consumer segment that Kroger was simultaneously trying to capture with its Simple Truth organic brand launch.
Kroger's acquisition of Chicago-based meal kit company Home Chef for approximately $700 million in 2018 reflected a strategic judgment that the meal kit market represented a meaningful opportunity to win higher-frequency, higher-basket purchases from millennial households seeking the convenience of meal planning without the full commitment of restaurant dining. Home Chef was the third-largest meal kit company in the United States at the time of the acquisition, with a subscriber base of several hundred thousand households and a direct-to-consumer subscription business complemented by a growing in-store retail meal kit presence.
Barney Kroger opened his first store at 66 Pearl Street in downtown Cincinnati in 1883 using roughly $372 in savings, trading under the name Great Western Tea Company. From that single storefront the operation expanded across Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, and Indiana to reach 151 locations by 1915, laying the base for what became the largest US supermarket operator.
In 1902 the business was reorganized as the Kroger Grocery and Baking Company, reflecting a move to bake bread in-house rather than purchase it from independent bakeries. By manufacturing bread directly, Kroger controlled costs and quality and offered fresh-baked products rivals could not easily match, making it one of the first grocery chains to integrate its own bakery operations.
Kroger went public in 1916, listing on the Cincinnati Stock Exchange to raise capital for its next wave of store growth. The move funded expansion while introducing the accountability of public ownership, and around the same period Kroger pioneered self-service grocery layouts that later became an industry standard.
Kroger was among the earliest grocery chains to deploy electronic barcode scanning at checkout starting in 1972. The transaction data it began accumulating from that point became the foundation for the loyalty programs and analytics capabilities that now underpin Kroger's most durable competitive advantage over 140 years after its 1883 founding.