Giant Eagle

After World War I, three Pittsburgh-area families—the Goldsteins, Porters, and Chaits—built a grocery chain called Eagle Grocery. In 1928, the company, which at the time had 125 stores, merged with Kroger. The three families agreed to stay out of the grocery business for at least three years.

Meanwhile, the Moravitz and Weizenbaum families built their own successful chain of grocery stores named OK Grocery. In 1931, OK Grocery merged with Eagle Grocery to form Giant Eagle, which was incorporated two years later. The first location opened in 1936. Giant Eagle quickly expanded across western Pennsylvania, weathering the Great Depression and World War II. In 1968, the company acquired a warehouse in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania formerly owned by Kroger.

The chain remained based solely in western Pennsylvania until the 1980s, when it bought Youngstown, Ohio-based wholesaler Tamarkin Company, and its Valu-King stores that were converted to the Giant Eagle name. The Kent and Ravenna stores were the first to be converted at that time; the Youngstown stores were then converted years later. Giant Eagle first started selling gas in 1995 at a store near Youngstown.

In 1997, it acquired Riser Foods for $403 million. It entered the Cleveland market in 1998, with the acquisition of Rini-Rego Stop-n-Shop. These stores were converted into Giant Eagle Stores. Also in 1998, the company started turning produce in to fertilizer. Giant Eagle also purchased other supermarkets in the Akron area.

The company entered the Toledo market, opening two stores in 2001 and 2004, both of which eventually closed. Giant Eagle emerged as one of the dominant supermarket chains in Northeast Ohio, competing mainly against the New York-based Tops, from which it purchased 18 stores in October 2006. The purchases came as Tops exited the Northeast Ohio area.

In 2002, Giant Eagle purchased six independently owned County Market stores, giving it a store in Somerset, Pennsylvania, a new store in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and its first Maryland stores: one in Cumberland, one in Hagerstown, and two in Frederick. The Cumberland store closed in December 2003, and the Hagerstown store closed in August 2005.

Giant Eagle has aggressively expanded its footprint in the Greater Columbus area, capitalizing on the demise of the former Big Bear supermarket chain, and taking Big Bear's traditional place as Columbus's upmarket grocer. Giant Eagle first entered what it calls its "Columbus Region" in late 2000, opening three large newly built stores at Sawmill and Bethel Rd., Lewis Center, and Dublin-Granville Rd., with two more following in 2002 and 2003 at Gahanna and Hilliard-Rome Rd. The Hilliard-Rome Rd. location closed in early 2017. In 2004, Giant Eagle purchased nine former Big Bear stores in Columbus, Newark, and Marietta from parent company Penn Traffic. Giant Eagle has since expanded to several additional locations, acquiring other abandoned Big Bear stores and in newly constructed buildings using the current Giant Eagle prototype. Giant Eagle opened its 20th Columbus-area store at New Albany Road at the Ohio Rt. 161 freeway (New Albany) in August 2007, its 21st area store at Hayden Run and Cosgray Roads (Dublin) in November 2007, its 22nd area store at Stelzer and McCutcheon Roads (Columbus) in July 2008 and its 23rd area store at South Hamilton Road and Winchester Pike (Groveport) in August 2008. A new Giant Eagle opened in Lancaster, in November 2008, and the former Big Bear located at Blacklick Crossing has undergone an expansion and remodeling.

On September 27, 2018, Giant Eagle announced it would purchase the Ricker's convenience store chain in Indiana, marking the largest acquisition for GetGo since the chain's launch. It is not known if the Ricker's chain will be integrated into the GetGo brand following the closure of the deal. Much as it has done in Pennsylvania alongside Sheetz, GetGo plans to join Ricker's in having Indiana change their laws regarding alcohol sales.

There are 211 Giant Eagle locations in the United States: 103 supermarkets in western Pennsylvania, 111 in northeastern and central Ohio, two in Morgantown, West Virginia, two in Frederick, Maryland and one in Carmel, Indiana. Each store carries between 22,000 and 60,000 items, approximately 5,000 of which are branded by Giant Eagle.

Giant Eagle offers more than two dozen departments across its stores. The range of services includes Redbox video terminals, Happy Returns, dry cleaning, Bissell carpet cleaner rental, Primo Water, lottery, the Flashfood app, Coinstar, grocery pickup and delivery, and pharmacies. Giant Eagle also has banking partnerships with Citizens Bank in Pennsylvania and Huntington Bank in Ohio and West Virginia.

The chain has built large prototypes, and it has experimented with many departments unusual to supermarkets. Larger stores feature vast selections of ethnic and organic food, dry cleaning services, catering, drive-thru pharmacies, in-store banking, as well as in-store coffee shops, pubs, restaurants, and prepared foods. Prepared foods are also sold at larger GetGo locations that can accommodate a GetGo Kitchen.

Although older Giant Eagle locations tend to be unionized and some are even franchised stores, in recent years the company has started leaning toward non-union company-owned and operated stores. Prior to the sale of GetGo to Couche-Tard, Giant Eagle operated any GetGo directly that was near a franchised Giant Eagle as opposed to the franchisee itself.

Criticism

Until 2022, Giant Eagle had the highest market share of any supermarket chain in the Pittsburgh area, giving it a de facto monopoly in some parts of western Pennsylvania; only stores supplied by United Natural Foods (UNFI) such as Shop 'n Save, FoodLand, and County Market have much of a presence in the area. The construction of new supercenters, including Walmart and others, and no frills supermarkets such as Aldi attracting value-seeking customers have somewhat decreased Giant Eagle's regional market share in the first decades of the twenty-first century.

Giant Eagle's market dominance in Greater Pittsburgh has led to accusations of the company buying up either existing supermarket locations or prime real estate for the sole purpose of not allowing a competitor come in. A notable example came in 2016, when the chain purchased property in McCandless, Pennsylvania, that had been planned for a Walmart location near an existing Giant Eagle; Walmart later backed out and Giant Eagle made no immediate announcement of plans for the property. The deal came only weeks after Giant Eagle laid off 350 workers from its corporate office. Giant Eagle was also successful in blocking a Walmart location opening at the dilapidated Northern Lights Shopping Center in Economy, Pennsylvania, though Walmart eventually opened a location on the hillside behind the property in 2014 after finding a loophole around Giant Eagle's lease at Northern Lights; Giant Eagle ultimately closed this location on January 2, 2021.

During Giant Eagle's ownership of GetGo, similar accusations were also made about GetGo not allowing Sheetz or Speedway opening up locations within the Pittsburgh city limits while GetGo has, although both competitor chains have several locations within the immediate suburbs. 7-Eleven's 2021 acquisition of Speedway made the issue partially moot as 7-Eleven has operated multiple locations within the Pittsburgh city limits for decades, though Sheetz remained "locked out" by GetGo. Aside from 7-Eleven, locally-based Coen Markets also operated within the Pittsburgh city limits during Giant Eagle's ownership, while Couche-Tard had previously closed or sold off the handful of Circle K locations it did have within the Pittsburgh city limits prior to acquiring GetGo. Two months after the sale of GetGo to Couche-Tard closed, Sheetz announced it would build a location in Pittsburgh's Banksville neighborhood, marking Sheetz's first location in the Pittsburgh city limits since the 1990s.

Before Walmart, Giant Eagle's last nationally-significant competitor in the Pittsburgh market was Kroger, which had bought the original Eagle but exited Western Pennsylvania in 1984 due to labor issues with its union as well as the local economy at the time. Many Giant Eagle locations in Pennsylvania and Northeast Ohio occupy former Kroger sites and used the distinctive Kroger prototypes from the 1980s with the sloped glass-roof entrance until most of the stores were remodeled or replaced with newer stores in the early 2000s with Giant Eagle's current prototype. Kroger and Giant Eagle still compete head-to-head in Morgantown, Columbus and Indianapolis.

Despite the perceived monopoly, Giant Eagle holds only a 32% market share in Pittsburgh as of August 2018, just barely edging out Walmart. In 2022, Giant Eagle fell behind Walmart, leaving open the possibility of a return of Kroger to the area or Meijer moving in. Giant Eagle has been rated as the worst grocer in the country according to 2026 data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index.