retail founded 1870 headquarters carrum downs victoria australia number of locations 70 1 key people fred harrison ceo 2 number of employees 6300 slogan where the community benefits website www.ritchies.com.au ritchies is the largest independent supermarket chain in australia owned by a group of private investors including metcash . ritchies also known as ritchies supa iga have the majority of their stores located in victoria . ritchies growth in recent years has been phenomenal . clarification needed numbering less than 20 stores in 2000 ritchies now appear on the top 20 australian retailers list with the likes of australian retailing giants kmart myer and bunnings to name a few . 1 contents 1 history 2 loyalty schemes 2.1 community benefit card 2.2 fuel offer 2.3 christmas club 3 references 4 external links history edit ritchies stores was founded in 1870 by thomas ritchie after surviving the shipwrecked isabella watson the first store opening up in frankston victoria on what is now nepean highway . 2 loyalty schemes edit community benefit card edit ritchies ceo fred harrison recognised the importance of introducing a loyalty program . the majority of loyalty programs at the time focused on rewarding the customer with gifts . ritchies decided to go in the opposite direction asking customers to nominate a club school or charity . ritchies would then donate a percentage of the total spend to the customer s nominated organisation each time the customer shopped within their stores . as at april 2010 ritchies have donated a total of 34 385 924 under the program . 3 fuel offer edit following the lead from uk giants tesco and sainsbury s to name a couple australian supermarket chains introduced a discount on fuel when customers purchased in excess of a set dollar amount in their stores . ritchies currently offer a 4 cent l discount at participating bp or united service stations when transactions of over 25 are conducted in store . 4 christmas club edit the christmas club is a savings program where customers can make regular deposits into their christmas club account . it was designed to help customers that find saving for the festive season difficult . customers can either make deposits at the checkout or set up direct debits from their bank account . come the 1 december christmas club members receive a statement showing what they have saved and a letter asking them to pick up their gift card which is valid in any ritchies store . customers that save over 200 for the year also receive a free gift . the program has been running since 2000 . references edit this article needs additional citations for verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . may 2010 learn how and when to remove this template message this article relies too much on references to primary sources . please improve this by adding secondary or tertiary sources . may 2010 learn how and when to remove this template message australia s top 20 retailer rankings . inside retailing online . 9 june 2009 . retrieved 2010 05 21 . wreck of the isabella watson http www.theshipslist.com ships wrecks isabellawatson1852.htm . sydney shipping gazette vol . 9 no. 418 p. 93 . 3 april . check date values in date help ; missing or empty url help donations . ritchies stores . 1 august 2009 . retrieved 2010 05 07 . ritchies fuel offer . ritchies stores . 1 august 2009 . retrieved 2010 04 30 . external links edit wikimedia commons has media related to ritchies stores australia . ritchies v t e supermarkets in australia aldi bi lo coles costco food for less foodland foodworks friendly grocer harris farm markets iga lidl spar supabarn thomas dux woolworths retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title ritchies stores & oldid 705083198 categories supermarkets of australiaretail companies established in 18701870 establishments in australiahidden categories cs1 errors datespages using web citations with no urlwikipedia articles needing clarification from august 2010articles needing additional references from may 2010all articles needing additional referencesarticles lacking reliable references from may 2010all articles lacking reliable referencescommons category without a link on wikidata navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages simple english edit links this page was last modified on 15 february 2016 at 11 43 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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