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Tops is an American supermarket chain based in Williamsville, New York, with stores in the western and central regions of that state, northwestern Pennsylvania and northeastern Ohio (the latter having once been Finast). It is a subsidiary of the Dutch corporation Ahold.
History
Early years
Tops was founded by Armand Castellani, who was born in 1917 in a village outside of Rome, Italy. His family came to the United States in 1920, and eventually settled in Niagara Falls, where his father, Ferrante, opened a small neighborhood grocery store.Following his mother's death in 1933, Castellani left school to help manage the store. He continued to do so until joining the Army in 1941. He attained the rank of captain after five years' service.
After World War II, Castellani returned to the family business. In 1951, he set out on his own and opened the Great Bear Market in Niagara Falls. Shortly thereafter, he partnered with Thomas Buscaglia, a grocery equipment salesman, to form the T.A. Buscaglia Equipment Co. Throughout the 1950s, Castellani and Buscaglia worked together, entering into a cooperative agreement with other small stores to build the foundation of what was to become the Tops Friendly Markets chain.
As the local economy boomed in the mid-to-late 1950s, the company's operations expanded to include building construction principally devoted to supermarkets. During this time, Savino Nanula, a meat department manager, became an integral part of the company's management team.
By 1958, they had set up headquarters in Buffalo, and in 1960 opened their first modern supermarket: a 25,000 square foot (2,250 m²) store on Portage Road in Niagara Falls. The company then changed its name to Niagara Frontier Services (NFS).
1960s: The chain is born
In 1962, franchise systems were established for supermarkets, under the Tops Friendly Markets name, and for smaller stores as B-Kwik. In February of that year, Tops signs went up on seven stores, and the chain was born. By the end of the year, NFS was comprised of 15 franchised stores throughout Western New York, employing a total of 300 associates. Throughout the 1960s, NFS implemented warehousing and centralized purchasing to allow the company to grow efficiently.In 1967, Buscaglia died and Armand Castellani took over as chief executive officer.
The next year, NFS went public, trading on the American Stock Exchange. Subsequently, the company began construction on a perishable warehouse and acquired general merchandise distributor G&G Sales and Service.
The following year, 1969, NFS entered the convenience store market by opening the first Wilson Farms Neighborhood Food store in Tonawanda. The same year, Tops was named Retailer of the Year by the Brand Names Foundation, an honor it would again earn in 1974.
1970s-80s: Growth and Change
The 1970s saw Tops, under the leadership of Castellani and Nanula, continue to grow in Western New York, and thrive where competitors struggled. Early in the decade, Tops began to build more company-owned stores. By the mid-70s, the company had expanded into the Rochester area, and over time, it became the only real competitor to Wegmans in the region. Also during this time, Tops opened its first Pennsylvania store in Bradford. In 1977, Tops installed electronic scanners, one of the first supermarkets to do so.In 1983, SB Investors, a private, New York-based investment group, purchased NFS. By this time, operations had grown to include 65 Tops stores, 50 Wilson Farms stores and 15 B-Kwik Food Stores, employing 7,000 associates.
The next year, Tops introduced Western New York shoppers to direct debit service, Instabank ATMs and the first CarryOut Café. It was also the year that Tops won the first of eight Golden Penguin Award from the National Frozen Food Association.
In 1985, Castellani was named Chairman of the Board and Nanula succeeded him as CEO. The following spring, SB Investors became known as Tops Markets, Inc., as the company went public for the second time, this time on NASDAQ. The following year, as Tops celebrated its 25th anniversary, a $196 million leveraged buyout of the company was engineered between a private investors group and Tops executives.
Acquisition by Ahold
A new era began March 27, 1991 as Tops, which had grown to 145 total stores and 11,000 associates, was acquired by Ahold, a major international food retailer based in the Netherlands. The same year, the first Tops International Super Center opened in Amherst. At that time, the 112,000 square foot (10,080 m²) store was the largest in Western New York, and boasted the biggest in-store bakery in the entire U.S.In the next few years several other locations were expanded into Tops International Stores, with more floor space and a product mix of many foods from different world cultures which up until then had not been widely available in the Buffalo area. With many Canadians at the time regularly crossing the border due to relaxed duties after the recently-concluded Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and the Canadian dollar at 90% of the value to its American counterpart, the new stores were in the right place at the right time and did even better business than expected.
The 1990s were marked by a new growth in operations, including the 1996 merger with Finast in Northeast Ohio, expansion across New York, the construction of a new headquarters in Williamsville, NY and the opening of a 848,000 square foot (76,320 m²) distribution center in Lancaster. By 1998, Tops' market area stretched from Sandusky, Ohio, to Utica. In January 1999, the BonusCard, its customer loyalty program, debuted. In May, all 45 Northeast Ohio Finast stores adopted the Tops Friendly Markets banner.
Tops entered into the new millennium by acquiring the Sugarcreek Stores chain, adding 87 stores to its Wilson Farms division. That summer, Tops installed self-scanning checkouts at 11 stores in Ohio and in late August, the first Tops fueling station premiered in Akron.
In 2001, Tops acquired 22 former Grand Union stores in the Adirondack region and in Central New York, further east than its market had traditionally been. They also introduced the Tops Xpress convenience store format. By the end of the year, the company celebrated another landmark with the opening of its 150th Tops store, located in Madison, Ohio.
2000s: Scandal and recovery
However, this aggressive growth was fueled in part by deliberate understatements of Ahold's debt to the financial markets, and when the scandal broke in 2003, Tops along with other units of the company was forced to backtrack. By 2005 the convenience stores had been sold to WFI Acquisition Inc., which will continue to operate the stores under their former names, and Tops was also looking to sell the 31 stores it had tried to establish in the Adirondack region (so far Price Chopper has acquired six, Hannaford will acquire three, and twelve will return to the Grand Union division of C&S Wholesale Grocers). The divesture of these stores will allow for Tops to invest the capital raised from the sale in its Western New York stores and "redefine" its market area. In July 2006, Ahold announced its decision to exit the Northeast Ohio market, which consists of 46 locations.Martin's Super Food Stores
In 2004, Tops fully remodeled a store in Perinton, and rebranded it Martin's Super Food Store in an effort to revitalize the marketplace. The stores were designed in a colorful manner in order to attact both new and old customers. The format worked well for the company, which prompted them to remodel another location in the Buffalo suburb of Amherst into the Martin's Super Food Store format, and then later three other stores in Dunkirk, Derby, and Batavia. As of April 16, 2006, the Martin's Super Food Store in Amherst reverted back to a Tops Market due to customer feedback, and the company announced it would no longer pursue the Martin's brand in New York.
Advertising and Logo
Its longtime ad slogan (first used in the late 1980s) is "Tops Never Stops ... Saving You More!" The slogan, temporarily put on hiatus in 2001, was brought back and refreshed in 2006, as "Tops Never Stops ... Giving You More!". Its stores, painted white and decorated in a very airy and modernistic style, are an integral part of the culture of Western New York. The company logo was originally a spinning top, and is still reflected in the diamond design used today.
External links
Companies based in New York | Supermarkets of the United States | Buffalo, New York
"Tops Markets LLC"