In The Spotlight: Stop & Shop

Stop & Shop's roots can be traced back to 1914, when the Rabinovitz family founded the Economy Grocery Stores Company in Somerville, Massachusetts. Four years later, family member Sidney Rabb introduced an idea new to retail: the self-service, modern supermarket. By 1947, Economy Grocery Stores had grown into a flourishing chain of 86 supermarkets and the name of the company was changed to Stop & Shop, Inc. In 1996, Stop & Shop was acquired by Ahold, one of the largest food retailers in the world. Worldwide, Ahold employs 450,000 people and services the needs of 40 million customers in 28 countries every week.

In all that time, The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company, has continued to be a good neighbor to organizations like Foodshare and the community agencies we serve.  Our partnership with Stop & Shop has led to some very meaningful contributions to the fight against hunger, including:

• The company donates over 7,000 pounds of meat, weekly, from 26 stores. They continually work to increase the amount of recoverable food, and have most recently authorized frozen foods to become a part of their food recovery efforts.
• Every year for the past 17 years, Stop & Shop has helped us kick off our Annual Turkey and Thirty Campaign with a donation of 1,000 turkeys through the HOG Run event.
• Stop & Shop’s ‘Food for Friend’s Campaign has been a great source of financial support to Foodshare. This year, recognizing there is a need year-round, Stop & Shop began the program during the summer months, a very challenging time of year for many food banks.
• Every September for the past 10 years, Stop & Shop has participated in the Food Industry Convoy of Caring and has been responsible for several other partners joining as well!
• Tino Rovero, Vice President at Stop & Shop, is an active member of Foodshare’s Food Industry Advisory Council and Board of Directors. Both groups require a substantial commitment of time, and provide the organization with an important source of expertise and guidance.
• Without volunteers, Foodshare’s work would be challenging to say the least.  Not only does senior management volunteer as evidenced above, but some of Stop & Shop’s managers and district managers have now begun volunteering regularly at Foodshare.
• At Foodshare, we’re always exploring new opportunities to engage volunteers while making a significant contribution to the community.  Most recently, Stop & Shop managers have helped us test the waters with an initiative that connects those in need with resume writing and household budgeting management  resources.

Like so many of our food industry friends Stop & Shop understands, and aligns with, our mission. They are tirelessly working to support Foodshare’s mission in every possible way, and for this we say “thank you!”