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Sav-A-Center was a trade name owned byThe Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company.
The Sav-A-Center name was first used for a chain ofsupermarkets in the greaterNew Orleans, Louisiana, area starting in the 1980s. The division operated throughoutLouisiana, and also had stores inMississippi.[1][2][3] In addition, the Sav-A-Center division included three regular A&P stores, one of which was a small "corner grocery" in theFrench Quarter of New Orleans that A&P had been operating since 1931.[4]
WhenSchwegmann filed for bankruptcy in 1999, A&P purchased six stores to add to its Sav-A-Center division.[1] In April 2004, A&P purchased four New Orleans stores fromAlbertsons with the intention of converting them under the Sav-A-Center banner.[5] By this point, A&P had 28 such stores in the New Orleans area. In May, the company announced a restructuring plan that would limit A&P to theEast Coast region, and the Sav-A-Center stores.[6][7]
In August 2005, many stores sustained damage as a result ofHurricane Katrina. Twenty-one stores reopened within a few months of the storm; two others following remodeling to repair flood damage. Five stores were closed permanently due to severe damage to the stores and surrounding areas.[8][9] In April 2007, the chain exited the Baton Rouge area.
By May 2007, A&P announced that it was planning to exit theNew Orleans area, and was seeking buyers for its 21 remaining Sav-A-Center stores. A&P cited the need to focus on its operations in the Northeast, and its merger with Pathmark, as the reason for the sale.[10]
It was announced in September 2007 that the remaining Sav-A-Center stores would be sold to the locally ownedRouses chain. Rouses took over 16 Sav-A-Center stores, including the Mississippi stores and the French Quarter A&P, sold one to competing chain Breaux Mart, and closed the others.[2][11][12]
The Sav-A-Center name was also added to many of A&P's Northeastern and mid-South Atlantic stores in the 1980s. In 1981, A&P purchased 17Stop & Shop locations in New Jersey[4][13] and rebranded several under the Sav-A-Center branding.[14] After the sale, A&P found itself sharingstrip-mall space with manyBradlees stores, which at the time were owned by Stop & Shop. When A&P took over the supermarkets, a common wall was built to separate the businesses. In many areas, includingTidewater region/Hampton Roads, Virginia, in North Carolina, plus most of A&P's Northeastern area, traditional A&P stores were remodeled as Sav-A-Centers; theclassic A&P sign's red, orange, and yellow colors became shades ofkelly green.
In the Northeast, the former Stop & Shop stores were larger than most of the traditional A&P stores. The company tried to use the Sav-A-Center conversion as a part of its "We've Built a Proud New Feeling" campaign, which was created to shed the company's high-price, stodgy perception. The campaign featured images of larger, cleaner, modern-style stores, happy, upscale-looking shoppers, and friendly, cooperative staff. (It was during this time that A&P debuted itsFuturestores.) The Sav-A-Center stores were renovated with oversized graphics of fresh-looking produce and baked goods; they also were outfitted with IBM-POS checkouts. However, A&P had trouble shedding its high-price perception; gradually, the low-volume Sav-A-Centers lost sales and shoppers to stores such asPathmark and NYC area-leaderShopRite. Some of the stronger Sav-A-Centers survived, but many eventually closed, or were re-branded as A&P Food Market in the 1990s or asFood Basics in the 2000s.
After A&P purchased theKohl's Food Stores chain, based inWisconsin,[15] some of those stores were re-branded asKohl's Sav-A-Center. These stores were later re-branded asKohl's Food Market orKohl's Food Emporium before that chain went under.
In the 1980s and 1990s A&P rebranded many locations of itsSouthern United StatesThe Family Mart chain asFamily Mart Sav-A-Center.[16]
Beginning in the late 1980s,A&P Canada opened several stores in theToronto area under the Sav-A-Centre name. Its logo was the same as the American Sav-A-Center, with the exceptions of being red rather than green.
A&P purchased 92Dominion stores in 1985.[17][14] By the late 1990s, some stores were rebranded as Dominion Sav-A-Centre.[18] In August 2005, A&P sold its Canada operations toMetro and the stores were all converted by 2009.[19][20][14]
In March 2007, A&P purchasedPathmark.[21] A few months later,Rouses Markets bought 19 Sav-A-Center and A&P stores from A&P, including the historic location in New Orleans' French Quarter.[22] In June 2008, Pathmark introduced a "price impact" store concept, under the Pathmark Sav-A-Center brand. This format was introduced to remodeled stores in Irvington and South Edison, New Jersey.[23]
After the success of these stores, A&P announced it would rebrand 16 Pathmark Super Centers, and eight of the 13 Philadelphia-area A&P Super Fresh stores as Pathmark Sav-A-Center stores.[24][25][26] In addition, A&P's website later rebranded Pathmark as Pathmark Sav-A-Center.[27]