Price Chopper: История американской сети супермаркетов с русскими корнями.

American supermarket chain owned by Northeast Grocery

Price Chopper Supermarkets is an American supermarket chain owned by Northeast Grocery, headquartered in Schenectady, New York. The chain opened its first supermarkets in New York's Capital District in 1932, and changed its name from Central Market to Price Chopper in 1973. It operates 129 stores in six states: Upstate New York, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. It operates stores under the Price Chopper, Market Bistro, and Market 32 banners.

In 1927, William Golub and his brother, Bernard, took over the wholesale grocery that their father, Lewis Golub, had opened in 1908 after emigrating from Russia. In 1932, Joseph E. Grosberg, together with Russian Jewish immigrants Bernard and William Golub, partners in the Grosberg Golub Corporation, opened the partnership's first supermarket (initially called Public Service Market) in Green Island, New York, followed by stores in Cohoes, Watervliet and Schenectady. They gave all four stores the name Central Market. The concept was a success and they continued to open many more stores in the region. In 1943, the Golub brothers bought out Joseph Grosberg's share of the company and formed the present parent company, the Golub Corporation. In 1951, it was one of the first grocery chains in the country to issue the well known S&H Green Trading Stamps. In the fall of 1973, Central Market changed its operating strategy. The chain dropped Green Stamps, slashed prices and, to reflect this new strategy, it re branded to the name "Price Chopper." (The name "Central Market" is now used as an upscale house brand, as well as for the floral department.) Price Chopper experienced continuing growth throughout the 1970s, opening new stores and upgrading old ones.

Price Chopper was an early innovator in the conversion of conventional stores to superstores and combination (food and drug) units, as well as operating stores that are open 24 hours a day. The first Price Chopper opened in the late 1970s in Oneonta, New York. Another opened in the early 1980s in Latham, New York, and then an even larger unit was constructed in Queensbury, New York in 1986. The Super Centers, which were state of the art by 1980s standards, often featured full service meat, seafood, and bakery departments, as well as pharmacies and banks (features new to supermarkets at the time). These units were also known for their unconventional layouts, with aisles facing horizontally, or away from, the cash registers, rather than the traditional vertical arrangement with the aisles facing the cash register area. Few Price Chopper stores still retain this layout today. In the late 1980s, Price Chopper changed its corporate logo featuring an axe cutting into a coin. In 1993, Price Chopper launched an updated version of the Super Center format with a South Hills Mall store in Poughkeepsie. (This store closed on July 15, 2006 and was converted into a ShopRite.) This was Price Chopper's first store in the Mid Hudson Valley market. The updated concept had a greater emphasis on take out and ready to eat meals, some featuring food courts with Price Chopper's own in house branded concepts, including Roasters (rotisserie chicken; no relation to Kenny Rogers Roasters), Bella Roma (pizza), Coyote Joe's (tacos and burritos), and the Bagel Factory. Under the newer prototype, the aisles were also placed back in the traditional vertical arrangement at the request of many customers who found the former layout confusing.

On February 8, 2021, Price Chopper Supermarkets/Market 32 and Tops Friendly Markets announced plans to merge. The new parent company will be headquartered in Schenectady, New York. The Price Chopper/Market 32 and Tops Markets businesses will retain main offices in Schenectady and Williamsville and will continue to be managed locally by their respective leaders. The merger was completed November 8, 2021 and the combined company is called Northeast Grocery. On November 28, 2023, it was revealed that Price Chopper had purchased all 5 of the former ShopRites in the Capital Region. The Niskayuna and North Greenbush locations will be converted to Market 32 while the Slingerlands location will be subleased. The Price Chopper locations at Westgate Plaza and Colonie Plaza will relocate to the former ShopRites in Albany and Colonie as Market 32s.

Price Chopper operates 129 stores in Upstate New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Its locations are all serviced from the same warehouse in Rotterdam, New York. Price Chopper's primary market is still the Capital District of New York, where about one third of its store base is located. Other major markets for Price Chopper include Utica, Syracuse, Binghamton, and the Mid Hudson Valley in New York, as well as Scranton and Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania; Hartford, Connecticut; Worcester, Massachusetts and Burlington, Vermont. Price Chopper primarily competes with Hannaford, Shaw's, and Stop & Shop in the eastern portion of its trading area, while facing competition from Wegmans, and Tops Markets (formerly Penn Traffic storefronts) in the west, and ShopRite and Stop & Shop in the south. The former Waterbury, Connecticut location closed in June 2008 and the location was purchased by rival chain ShopRite. This marked a step back for the Price Chopper chain in a highly competitive area where another chain grocery store, Shaw's of Waterbury, also closed in September 2007 as part of that chain's exit from the state. All of Price Chopper's remaining stores in Connecticut have so far been successful despite being a relatively new name to the region.

Price Chopper has four private label brands: PICS by Price Chopper (main brand being phased in, replacing Price Chopper brand), Price Chopper (main brand used on most food products, being phased out with the transition to Market 32), Price Chopper Naturals (some organic products, being phased out), and Central Market Classics (upscale brand, used on higher end foods and currently phased out). Other brands are sourced from Topco Associates, including TopCare (health and beauty products), Full Circle (natural and organic products), Valu Time (value priced brand, often made using cheaper ingredients), and Simply Done (paper products, cleaning products, storage solutions, etc.) From 2007 to 2015, the company had used a summer campaign to promote its fresh meats and produce, known simply as "Price Chopper House of BBQ." Accompanying this campaign, the company used the slogan "not cooking tonight we’re grilling tonight" in jingles. The campaign mainly featured jazz musician Melvin Sparks until his death in 2011. For 2016, the House of BBQ was dropped from advertising in favor of a new campaign called "Summertime: Savor Every Moment."

In late 2005, renovations on the eight year old Slingerlands store (#159) began. Plans for the renovation included the opening of a New York style sandwich shop named "Ben and Bill's" after the founders of the company. The Sandwich Shop sells a variety of pre packaged products, such as typical New York City pastries, along with sandwiches and deli items. It stands next to the store's regular deli and is themed to look like a traditional New York City delicatessen. The sandwich shop was a success at the Slingerlands store and has since been rolled out to four other locations. The second Ben and Bill's opened in July 2008 in the Saratoga Springs (#158) store, a third location opened in September 2009 in Burlington, Vermont's (#165) store. In March 2014, a fourth location opened in Price Chopper's flagship store, the newly remodeled and rebranded Market Bistro (#138) store in Latham, New York.