Dive Brief:
- The 1939 Group, Inc., a newly formed holding company controlled by the family that runs Schnuck Markets, has agreed to buy all of the shares of the Wisconsin-based parent company of Skogen’s Festival Foods and Hometown Grocers, Inc., according to a Tuesday announcement. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
- Skogen’s Festival Foods runs 42 stores in Wisconsin. Hometown Grocers has nine in the state, all under different banner names.
- With the deal, 1939 Group will operate three sister companies with a 164-store footprint across Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.
Dive Insight:
After the deal is finalized, Todd Schnuck, Schnuck’s chairman and CEO, will become chairman and CEO of 1939 Group and lead the three grocery chains.
“Schnucks, Skogen’s Festival Foods and Hometown Grocers share a strikingly similar set of core values, tracing our success to decades of consistently focusing on the communities we serve, the values we share and the ongoing quest for excellence in grocery retail,” Schnuck said in the announcement.
Mark Skogen, outgoing CEO of Festival Foods and Hometown Grocers, said the transaction will help strengthen the two Wisconsin-based grocery chains.
Schnucks, Skogen’s Festival Foods and Hometown Grocers will maintain their existing corporate headquarters and operate as separate companies under the 1939 Group. The 1939 Group and Schnucks are based in St. Louis, while Skogen’s Festival Foods and Hometown Grocers are headquartered in Onalaska and Green Bay, Wisconsin, respectively.
With the acquisition, the 1939 Group — named after the year that Schnucks was founded — will have a workforce of roughly 19,000 people. The deal is expected to close in October.
“With this combination, we’re welcoming more than 8,000 associates to our family, unifying two family legacies and redefining what it means to be a regional grocer,” Schnuck said.
The acquisition is the latest in a string of mergers between regional grocers in recent years as companies look to expand and improve their economies of scale. Last year, Hy-Vee acquired Strack & Van Til in a deal that brought Hy-Vee into Indiana.
In 2021, Raley’s completed its acquisition of Arizona-based Bashas’, which resulted in the formation of a new business entity. That same year, Price Chopper/Market 32 and Tops Markets announced their merger, which combined the chains into one company.
