Photo courtesy of Michael Hale
Acme water spotted at a Giant in Herndon, Virginia! Funny how the one of very few products that carries the Acme name wound up at another supermarket. Not to mention at a supermarket that dropped its name off of all its products a few years ago. You gotta love how "ACME" is just jumping out at shoppers!
I love when this happens. My Pathmark used to get a lot of Ahold's packaged produce, salads, carrots, etc. and confuse the cashiers when they weren't on file.
ReplyDeleteAcme and Ahold get their store brand water from Niagara so I can see how this could happen. Niagara is also sold at Home Depot and last summer at their Mahwah location they had a skid of Ahold's Acadia brand.
ReplyDeleteBTW - I am happy that Acme has there name back on their water products b/c for short period they carrying the Super Chill brand.
The Acme on Bristol Road still carries the Super Chill brand of water, but only in the 1 Gallon. The 16.9 l. Oz. bottles and the 2.5 Gallon are sold under the Acme name.
DeleteI've found Giant Ice tea before at the Acme on Bristol Road, Bensalem, PA
ReplyDeleteHahahahaha! At Stop&Shop there was a sign that said "Bonus Buy" And it listed a Coca-Cola, Utz Bag Of Chips, And A GIANT brand 6' Sub! LOL. That sign's been there for like a year now! -AcmeLover
ReplyDeleteWell, S&S and Giant are owned by the same company, so that makes sense.
DeleteHmmm, this is Virginia? Perhaps the Acme water was supposed to end up at Safeway (which has a ton of stores in the Baltimore/DC area), considering the Albertsons/Safeway/Cerberus merger that just happened?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I find it amazing that this Giant chain in Baltimore/DC still exists, because Martin's (which is the PA Giant chain in all but name) is in the same states, even though Giant/Martin's in my opinion is a much more modern chain than the Baltimore/DC Giant chain.
However, the Super G stores in Greater Philly owned by the Baltimore/DC chain in the 90's were actually really nice, and a lot bigger than the then relatively few (and very boring) Giant PA stores that were in Greater Philly at the time. It makes me sick that the Ahold stores in South Jersey (which started out as Edwards, then were Super G, then were Stop & Shop) ended up as ShopRite. While ShopRite has unbeatable prices, they really are like the Walmart of supermarket chains in PA and NJ quality wise.
Fun fact: the Edwards stores in NJ were part of the Giant/Martin's branch of Ahold, even though they later spent time as both of the other two Ahold chains. Also, the former Edwards/Super G in Trenton closed in 2005, never becoming a Stop & Shop like its sister stores did at that time, but now is an independent supermarket called Food Bazaar. The logo for Food Bazaar looks to me like a total ripoff of the Grand Union logo. But perhaps Food Bazaar has a connection somehow to the Grand Union stores that still exist, such as in Milford PA?
Unfortunately there are no more Grand Unions - the last of them (which were in NY and a couple in VT) converted over to Tops.
DeleteHowever, I'd assume C&S still owns the name and such (as they bought GU when it went bankrupt), so perhaps if this store buys from them they allow the use of a similar design?
Speaking of Tops, the former Acme in Wellsboro, PA now is a Tops after also at one time being a Bi-Lo (and possibly an Insalaco's at one time). I get the feeling this store still has some Acme decor inside but have never been inside to confirm that.
DeleteAnd as for C&S Wholesale Grocers, they very briefly owned the FoodSource gourmet market in Bryn Mawr, PA that was owned by Clemens, but was orphaned when Clemens was dissolved. FoodSource closed in 2010 and is still empty. I get the feeling a Trader Joe's will open at the site eventually, but Acme has a relatively new (but very small) store a block away, and I imagine they will move the earth to block Trader Joe's from opening. The site also would be perfect for a beer store though, so maybe that will happen instead. But even then, if Acme tries to add a frosted mug to the Bryn Mawr store, they just might oppose a beer store too...
The Safeway stores wold still be using their Safeway brands, since they are not supplied by SuperValu
DeleteDoes the Food Bazaar store in Trenton have any of the Giant-MD or Ahold decor still intact? The store would have opened with the 1990s neon interior that Giant-MD was using when the Super G stores were built.
ReplyDeleteGiant-PA is definitely the better of the two Giant chains that Ahold owns. Ahold has the chains segregated the way they are because Giant-MD and Stop and Shop are union whereas Giant-PA is not. At the time that Ahold purchased Giant-MD they were still the strongest, best grocer in the DC area. There is still quite a bit of loyalty to Giant-MD from people who have lived in the DC area for a long time. But with so much competition and Giant-MD becoming a cookie cutter store (and a clone of Stop and Shop) folks have gone elsewhere. If Ahold could convert the Giant-MD stores to the Giant-PA format they would have the potential of becoming a newly strengthened competitor in the DC and Baltimore. But that would mean getting rid of the union which even in these less union oriented time would never happen.
Actually I've never been to the Food Bazaar, but set foot in the store as a Super G once or twice. I don't recall the decor much at all, but I doubt the store had the same decor as the earlier PA/NJ Super G stores. This store was built in 1994 as an Edwards, and was not a Super G until 2001 (three years after the PA Super G stores had already been divested, in order for the Ahold purchase of Giant Landover to be approved).
DeleteThat's so funny that happened to me in ShopRite I found Stop & Shop cinnamon buns don't have the picture anymore though but they had a good stock of them
ReplyDeleteI worked at a Foodtown and this sort of thing would happen all the time. We used to get gallons of milk branded for Pathmark, ShopRite, you name it.
ReplyDeleteWe've had that up here also - Price Chopper has had other brands from time to time. However, they usually stick them on a mark down shelf so they can be good deals. They have also occasionally had fairly new items cheap in their smaller stores, as apparently someone shipped a new item that they didn't have a place for in their setup.
ReplyDeleteWalmart has been carrying alot of Supervalu branded products lately.
ReplyDeleteYears back the Acme I worked at got a mixed carton of single roll toilet paper branded in both Acme and ShopRite wrappers. The ShopRite rolls were sent to the employee bathroom as store expense. This was a case of generic toilet paper of mixed colors - pastel blue, sherbert green, light pink, light yellow, and light tan to match the décor of people's rest rooms. Of course we always had too much of the tan(brown really) single rolls. At one point we had an entire open case of tan singles repacked in the back of active case on the front of the shelf...
ReplyDeleteLew