Food 4 Less is a national Price-Impact Warehouse grocery chain, currently owned by Kroger. It is a no-frills grocery store where the customers bag their own groceries at the checkout. Kroger operates Food 4 Less stores in California, Arizona, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, and Nevada.

Nugget

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The company uses the Foods Co name in Northern California, where Kroger is bound by an agreement between previous owner Fleming and grocer Nugget Markets, Inc.. All Food 4 Less stores in Northern California are managed and operated by Nugget. Kroger does not have any administrative control over the three Nugget Food 4 Less stores.

Nugget Food 4 Less is limited by its agreement with Fleming in its ability to advertise in circulars. Kroger Food 4 Less circulars will feature individual products on sale whereas Nugget Food 4 Less circulars only promote sales events and customer testimony. Ad Prices from the Kroger Food 4 Less chain will not be honored.

The Nugget Food 4 Less stores also feature a different selection of products than Kroger Food 4 Less stores due to Nugget's pooling of resources from its upscale Nugget Market stores. Marketing and administration of the Nugget Food 4 Less stores is handled through the Nugget Market Corporate Office in Woodland, California, and any requests for other Food 4 Less stores will be deferred to the Kroger Corporate Office in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is unclear whether Nugget Markets and Kroger will continue the Fleming relationship when the franchise agreement expires.

Fleming

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Fleming and Falley's are another franchisee of the Food 4 Less name. In early 2003, Fleming filed for bankruptcy, causing the company to place all Fleming owned Food 4 Less stores up for bids to other national grocers. Three stores in Utah were purchased by Albertsons, who retained two stores. The two stores kept the Food 4 Less name until January 2005, when the names changed to the Albertsons owned Super Saver name. Another store in Pinole, ^* California (Pinole Vista Shopping Center) was either rebranded as a Foods Co or was bought by Foods Co, a subisbiary of the same company.

Falley's

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The Food-4-Less name and logo was originally conceived in the 1930's by Lou Falley, who developed a chain of stores both in the Food-4-Less name (with the warehouse/no frills format) and the Falley's name. The Falley's stores were full service supermarkets, while the Food-4-Less stores were warehouse stores, where labor costs were cut by having the groceries stocked to the shelves in the original cases, rather than stacking individual items. These stores were located throughout eastern Kansas and parts of northwestern Missouri. Over the years, the number of Falley's store diminished, and were replaced with Food-4-Less stores. In the late 90's the chain was absorbed by Associated Wholesale Grocers of Kansas City and has since changed the logo and format for its remaining stores. The warehouse type stores are slowly being phased out in favor of full service Food-4-Less stores with a new logo and format.

As of January 2006, the Falley's owned Food-4-Less stores located in Kansas were sold to Homeland Stores, based in Edmond, Oklahoma. The company changed the names of the Food-4-Less stores, which it can't use beyond Kansas and Missouri, to Homeland Stores. The both Falley's and Homeland are sister companies owned by Associated Wholesale Grocers of Kansas City, Kansas, one of the country's largest cooperative grocery wholesalers.

External links

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• Kroger's Official site
• Nugget Market Official site
• Homeland Stores Official site
• Profile at Hoovers.com

Kroger | Supermarkets of the United States | Companies based in California