What happened to Festival Foods in McMurray? (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh: for sale, home)

[wardwhirlboromarlpool1955]

My grandma from McMurray used to come to my home near Philadelphia all the time and bring baked goods from the Festival Foods whenever we had family gatherings. There was only one Festival Foods in Southeastern Pennsylvania, in Eddystone (near Southwest Philadelphia) but it closed around 2002 and ended up a ShopRite. I also knew of some Festival Foods in the Harrisburg area, but they all closed around 2000. From what I understand, Festival is/was originally a Midwestern chain, from either Minnesota, Michigan, or Wisconsin, but I forget which. And I heard about a Festival Foods on McKnight Road in Pittsburgh but was that really McMurray? They also had stores in Jeanette and Wexford at one time according to what always seemed like an unfinished website. When did all these stores close? Did they all have a big liquidation sale? And what happened to their buildings? Anyway why did they go under? I thought the quality of their prepared food was top notch.

[Pitt Chick]

Search Festival Foods Store Locations Nearest You!

all stores are in MN and WI

[greg42]

Festival is (or perhaps was, I can't tell for sure) a name owned by SuperValu (also of Save-a-Lot, Shop n Save, etc.) But it was not always owned by SuperValu; I found reference to them gaining it in an acquisition. So it's possible that is what caused those locations to close. That and anything that doesn't have enough name recognition just gets crushed by Giant Eagle.

At any rate, these stores would probably have been independently owned, as is the case with many of the SuperValu brands. But, since there was history before that, and perhaps after, it's not clear. The Wisconsin people even made a blog post that included the question "Are you owned by SuperValu?" then proceeded not to answer that aspect at all. The stores in Wisconsin and Minnesota are most definitely supplied (but not owned) by SuperValu. How there came to be and then not be stores in PA, well, I can't figure out the whole story, but I know they were here. Most likely those stores were as I said also independently owned.

[wardwhirlboromarlpool1955]

In the 90s (possibly starting in the late 80s), there was a Jubilee Foods supermarket in Manchester PA (near York) which was bought by Giant (the central/eastern PA company with NO RELATION to Giant Eagle) in 2000. Giant built a new store to replace this small one in 2009 though. The Jubilee/Giant ended up as a Roses store, similar to Big Lots. Jubilee had some sort of connection to Festival Foods and its old supplier Fleming Foods, and later supplier Supervalu, the wholesale grocer which owns Save-A-Lot and Shop N Save among other chains in the USA. Jubilee also had a relationship with IGA (Independent Grocers Association) of some sort.

[wardwhirlboromarlpool1955]

The future is looking dark for Supervalu right now. Yet another of their ventures in Philadelphia is leaving them. Their efforts to replace the Super G stores (based in Maryland) in the Phila region with Shop N Save were a disaster, as was their purchase of the Acme stores in the area years later, which had been absorbed by Albertsons, which in turn was absorbed by Supervalu. This time, The Fresh Grocer, a small chain of inner-city supermarkets owned by Supervalu, is being sold to ShopRite, the same NJ company that bought the Festival Foods in Eddystone long ago. And the urban Save-A-Lot small size/generic items stores are dying in Philadelphia due to competition from Amelia's, a chain that sells non-generic items at the same price point as Save-A-Lot sells generics.

[Mike hbg]

I worked at several Festival Foods, in Lebanon County and Harrisburg, PA and Bel Air Maryland as well as their corporate offices in York, PA. I may be able to shed some light.

-when I worked there in the mid to late 90's the Festival and Jubilee brands were owned by Fleming Foods. Fleming was a wholesale distribution company like IGA or SuperValue.

-for a brief period, these stores were ahead of their time. The Festival brand tended to be very large, high volume wharehouse-like, low-cost concept stores.

-in general many stores were privately owned, like franchises that relied on Fleming exclusively for distribution.

-In PA, Fleming had a retail division with about 18-20 grocery stores in PA and MD. These were stores owned and run from Fleming corporate offices in central PA, originally Mechanicsburg and then York (also home of Fleming's wholesale distribution center).

-in 2000, Fleming decided to close their PA retail division and put their stores up for sale (sold independent from one another). Shortly after that Fleming's wholesale operations was bought by SuperValue and the York, PA wholesale distribution center was closed.

-my understanding is that the stores in WI are still privately owned, very successful and still affiliated with SuperValue (bought Fleming) from a distribution perspective.

[url=http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/fleming-companies-inc-history/]History of Fleming Companies, Inc. – FundingUniverse[/url]