Weis Markets Areas Of Operations Chief Competitors History And Brands

Weis Markets, Inc. has its presence in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and West Virginia. The supermarket chain is based in Sunbury, Pennsylvania. Harry and Sigmund Weis, two brothers founded the Weis Super Markets which originally started as Weis Pure Foods in the year 1912, in Sunbury, Pennsylvania.

This store attracted special attention for being a store that operated through cash sales in contrast to the other stores that allowed credit purchases to their customers. Cash sales marked the growth of the working class that drew regular paychecks. This also led to the fall in the prices up to 25 percent. The year 1915 witnessed the establishment of the second Weis store in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. This proved to be a great step for Weis for anchoring and later consolidating the central Pennsylvania region. This was followed by the rapid growth of Weis grocery stores throughout Pennsylvania.

By the year 1933, the chain consisted of 155 stores in 15 counties of central Pennsylvania. It was in this time that the self- service concept of supermarkets was gaining prominence. But Weis grocery stores followed the traditional concept in which a clerk was responsible to retrieve ordered items from the shelves for the customers. But Weis decided to change to the modern concept of self- service too and with this intention, several grocery stores in Harrisburg were closed down in 1938 to form the first self- service consolidated supermarket which came to be known as the Weis Super Market. By the year 1955, about 35 grocery stores had been consolidated into supermarkets.

Weis markets extended beyond its familiar boundaries to New York and Lancaster during the 1950s and 1960s. Weis markets expanded its services outside of Pennsylvania for the first time when stores were opened in Hagerstown and Maryland and when the Albany Market chain consisting of six stores were purchased in Albany, New York in the year 1967. Till this point, Weis consisted of a total of 65 stores. Weis also made its way to the Western Pennsylvania reaching Philipsburg and Altoona.

Weis was able to expand its operations in Baltimore, Maryland with immense success which was followed by the takeovers of Giant Food of Landover and Safeway Inc. But it did not have a great degree of success in Montgomery County and Manassas, Virginia as a result of which Weis had to close down stores in those locations in 2006. Weis also had the same fate in New Jersey when a store in Flanders experienced a closure in 2002. It was just two years after the store was opened. At present, the Weis store faces tough competition from other stores like Shop Rite Cooperative, Acme and A&P. Nevertheless, Weis continues to function successfully in the rural areas, small towns and in the third class cities of central, southern and northeastern Pennsylvania. Weis has also made its way to the Scranton and Wilkes- Barre markets and the Johnstown- State College area.

Weis also sells a number of products under its own brand names and private labels. Some of these include the From the Dock which denotes the seafood marketed by Weis, From the Oven that represents the bakery items of Weis, the Weis Steakhouse which stands for the meat that is marketed by Weis and From the Field that denotes the food grains. So, far Weis have had Giant of Carlisle, a chain of supermarkets owned by Ahold as its sole competitor which shook Weis off by its large expansion projects across various locations. In fact, Giant dominates the market in north-eastern and central Pennsylvania.

But Weis does not have a single banner for its operations. It has two more banners- King’s and Mr. Z’s banners. The company normally uses these banners in the Pocono region of Pennsylvania but it is to be noted that all products that are sold in these stores come with the Weis name. Weis also runs a chain of pet stores by the name Superpetz. weis markets