Every Wednesday, a group of Shop ’n Save store owners gather at the New Stanton warehouse run by their grocery distributor to talk about cheese, coffee, sirloin, paper towels, watermelons and whatever else looks like it might work well in their weekly advertising fliers.
There are now 100 stores in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, western Maryland, eastern Ohio and upstate New York that carry the name Shop ’n Save, a brand that has been around here since the 1960s. The stores are owned by 49 independent operators — some who own a lot of stores and others just a few — with a heavy concentration in the Pittsburgh area.
The grocers are in it together — and on their own. Together they established a gas rewards program a few years ago to respond to O’Hara rival Giant Eagle’s powerhouse gas offering. Individually, they choose whether to put a bank in a store rather than devote the space to a cafe, or whether to buy up extra Miracle Whip to put on sale in their own stores after the group deal ends.
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