Meijer Inc. history, company profile (overview) and corporate video
Meijer Inc. is a supercenter chain headquartered in Walker, Michigan, United States. It offers groceries as well as Pharmacy, Electronics, Home, Fashion, Style, Health and Beauty Care, Automotive, and others.
The company is organized in supermarkets and hypermarkets. It also owns gas stations, small-format markets, Meijer Grocery, Fresh Thyme Farmers Market, etc.
HISTORY
Meijer’s origins date back to 1934 when in the midst of the Great Depression, a modest local barber in Greenville, Michigan, Hendrik Meijer purchased $328.76 worth of merchandise on credit in an effort to take care of the customers who visited his barbershop. Together with his 14-year-old son, Fred Meijer, they opened North Side Grocery.
Meijer continued looking for innovative opportunities and ways to provide higher service levels to its customers. He renamed his store Meijer’s Grocery and began broadening his business through newspaper ads and fancy metal shopping carts.
After World War II, the company acquired an office in Greenville and opened its first store in Grand Rapids, the second-largest city in Michigan. As Meijer’s customer base grew, the company asked its customers to help choose a name for a new symbol. Through a local contest, a customer suggested the name “Thrifty” for the Meijer little Dutch Boy mascot, who became the company’s symbol for the next thirty years.
In 1962, Hendrik and Fred Meijer opened its first “Thrifty Acres” in Grand Rapids, a food and general merchandise store that allowed customers to shop for everything they needed in just one trip, marking the birth of the first supercenter nationwide.
Meijer has always been finding and using new technology. This includes everything from the introduction of checkout scanners in the 1970s to the decision to stay open 24 hours in the 1980s to the launch of Meijer.com in the 1990s.
In 2015, Meijer acquired Aureus Health Services, a national specialty pharmacy and health services company.
With more than 70,000 employees, Meijer Inc. is considered one of the Largest Public Companies in the World, according to Forbes.
*Information from Forbes.com, Wikipedia.org, and www.meijer.com.
**Video published on YouTube by “meijer“