M&R FOODS INC.
Owner Bill Price
Grocery stores:
- Save-A-Lot, 21 E. Dayton Yellow Springs Rd., Fairborn
- McMaken's IGA, 1 McMaken Lane, Brookville
PRICE BROTHERS RETAIL
Owners and brothers Bill and Paul Price
Grocery stores:
- Save-A-Lot, 1741 S. University Blvd., Middletown
- Save-A-Lot, 4525 Roosevelt Blvd., Middletown
- Save-A-Lot, 110 E. Sixth St., Franklin
- Save-A-Lot, 726 E. Main St., Lebanon
Total employees, M&R Foods and Price Brothers: approximately 160 full- and part-time
The discount locally-owned grocery stores Save-A-Lot are an anomaly in the region’s changing food retail landscape, said Bill Price, the licensee of five area Save-A-Lots.
Other grocery stores have called it quits, such as MainStreet Markets in Fairfield, Franklin and Hamilton; Dillman Foods in Middletown; and IGA in Ross Twp. However, Price isn’t downsizing. Rather, he increased his ownership of Save-A-Lot stores in recent years, buying two Middletown locations in 2012 on Roosevelt and South University boulevards, and the Lebanon location on Main Street in 2013.
The competition in southwest Ohio’s grocery business is heated, as the backyard of The Kroger Co. of Cincinnati, the nation’s largest traditional-format grocer. Price, who regularly walks his store aisles, said his pulse is on the neighborhoods he operates in so he’s in tune with what customers want.
“We have a lot less overhead than a chain store has. I’m the HR guy, I’m the website guy,” Price said. Less overhead translates to lower prices. “That’s how we compete.”
“A lot of people are going out of business,” Price said. “I think we have a good culture in our stores where we try to take care of our associates… We give good customer service. That counts for something too.”
Save-A-Lot, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, has more than 1,300 stores in 36 states. Save-A-Lots number 137 storefronts in Ohio. While close to 400 stores in the U.S. are corporate-owned, the majority of Save-A-Lots are under license agreements to local business owners.
All Save-A-Lot stores carry the same core products, but licensees have the flexibility to vary offerings by purchasing items preferred in the community, and sourcing from local vendors, said Save-A-Lot spokeswoman Chon Tomlin.
“We can change in a dime,” Price said. He “doesn’t need to have a board meeting to make a change in a store.”
Price licensed his first Save-A-Lot 10 years ago in Fairborn, in Greene County. He also solely owns McMaken’s IGA in Brookville, in Montgomery County.
He and his brother Paul Price jointly own a Franklin Save-A-Lot, which they bought in 2010. Price Brothers Retail in 2012 bought two Save-A-Lots in Middletown and in 2013, they also purchased the Lebanon store license.
Discount retailers are growing because “people need to save money and if they don’t need to, people like to know they are spending their money wisely. Plus I think customers are tiring of the mega stores, how long it takes to shop,” Price said.
Altogether, Bill Price has more than 40 years in the grocery business, since his first job at 16 as a bagger at a Big Bear grocery store. Other past experience includes being president of the nine-store Howard’s Foods operation in Springfield. He is a member of the National Retailer Advisory Board with IGA, a member of the Ohio Grocers Foundation Board, and past chairman of Ohio Grocers Association.
Save-A-Lot is a subsidiary of SUPERVALU Inc. SUPERVALU operates other retail food businesses such as Cub Foods, and a grocery distributing business.
About the Author