see fred g. meyer . for other uses see fred meyer disambiguation . this article contains content that is written like an advertisement . please help improve it by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view . july 2015 learn how and when to remove this template message 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 2011 learn how and when to remove this template message fred meyer type subsidiary industry retail headquarters portland oregon area served washington oregon idaho alaska key people jeff burt president 1 products food liquor clothing footwear bedding furniture jewelry beauty products electronics toys lumber garden supplies and housewares parent kroger website fredmeyer.com fred meyer inc. is a chain of superstores founded in 1922 in portland oregon by fred g. meyer not to be confused with frederik gerhard hendrik meijer former chairman of the meijer superstore chain which is based in michigan with stores in the midwest . the company was one of the pioneers of one stop shopping eventually combining a complete grocery supermarket with a drugstore clothing store shoe store fine jewelers home decor store home improvement center garden center electronics store toy store sporting goods store and more under one roof . fred meyer stores are located in oregon washington idaho and alaska . before the company s merger with kroger in october 1998 it traded on the new york stock exchange under the ticker symbol fmy . although the company is now an entity of kroger the stores are still branded fred meyer and the western region of the kroger company is headquartered in portland . fred meyer is sometimes known as freddy s a nickname the company was given by its customers and which is used in its advertising . for a number of years the company has used the marketing slogan what s on your list today you ll find it at fred meyer or more simply what s on your list today in its advertising . contents 1 history 1.1 beginnings 1.2 valu mart acquisition death of fred meyer 1.3 california expansion and retreat 1.4 acquisitions of grand central and smith s 1.5 merger with kroger 2 store design 2.1 departments 2.2 additional services 3 alternate store formats 3.1 fred meyer marketplace 3.2 fred meyer northwest best 3.3 fm red tag outlet 4 private label brands 5 personnel 5.1 organizational structure 5.2 employees 6 rewards program 7 plastic bag ban 8 reference in popular culture 9 see also 10 references 11 external links history edit a fred meyer store of the 1990s beginnings edit fred g. meyer originally of brooklyn new york opened his first stand on the corner of a busy highway in brooklyn selling cherries . meyer said he originally started his cherry selling business because he needed the extra cash to buy a car . meyer eventually expanded his store to selling items for cleaning as well as cereal until he eventually opened his first permanent location in portland oregon . the first suburban one stop shopping center opened in 1931 in the hollywood district of portland 2 a neighborhood he deliberately chose through a shrewd and prescient application of market research he would pay customers overtime parking tickets that they incurred while shopping at his downtown store just to obtain their home addresses . citation needed the store s innovations included a grocery store alongside a drugstore plus home products off street parking gas station and eventually clothing . fred g. meyer would base store locations on planned highway construction . 2 in 1951 the fred meyer company built a large warehouse near providence portland medical center in laurelhurst despite complaints and controversy from neighbors and the city council . 2 neighbors didn t want large truck volume in their city but the area was already zoned for industrial and commercial east of 44th avenue . 2 the huge warehouse was built to the detriment of the banfield expressway built in sullivan s gulch less than five years later . 2 the warehouse had to be condemned and partially destroyed for the freeway with the state highway commission selling the remaining sections to the bemis company . 2 the fred meyer company moved to swan island on land formerly occupied by wartime housing for kaiser shipyards . 2 in the 1960s fred meyer entered the seattle market by acquiring seattle based marketime drugs . fred meyer also acquired a spokane based grocery wholesaler the roundup company . roundup owned no stores in spokane but owned kalispell montana based b & b stores in northwest montana and consumer warehouse foods in soap lake washington . by march 1968 fred meyer inc. was operating in four states oregon washington idaho and montana and had 48 retail stores . 3 later in 1968 the first full fledged fred meyer in the seattle area opened in lynnwood washington . it was the largest fred meyer for about a decade . citation needed valu mart acquisition death of fred meyer edit previous fred meyer logos in 1973 fred meyer acquired all five oregon stores of the valu mart discount chain formerly known as villa mart in oregon from its parent company seattle based weisfield s inc. 4 the following year weisfield s leased its remaining stores renamed leslie s 5 in 1975 6 according to an article published in the business section of the seattle times on august 10 1975 fred meyer signed long term leases with most of the 21 weisfield s owned stores tacoma and everett locations were not acquired . some of the properties may have been purchased by fred meyer at the time in the oregon market but weisfield s maintained existing leases on properties in the seattle tacoma market since leases for the grocery sections leased to associated grocers in 1973 and other smaller businesses within the stores were kept . kroger acquired these properties from weisfield s during the 1990s and 2000s . some of these properties such as the greenwood and midway locations were demolished to rebuild the locations . in 1975 fred meyer opened its first stores in alaska as a result of acquiring leslie s valu mart and changed the leslie s valu mart stores to the fred meyer banner . as fred meyer became better known in the seattle area the marketime drug chain became known as fred meyer marketime . while fred meyer was building new stores in washington state some smaller discount stores in the state would lease a portion of their stores to fred meyer as well such as the hi ho shopping center in puyallup and the yard birds shopping center in centralia . in 1977 marketime was renamed fred meyer . in the mid 1980s the northwest montana b & b stores also acquired the fred meyer name . on september 2 1978 fred g. meyer died at the age of 92 . until his death mr. meyer had continued to play an active role in the day to day operation of his company . also in 1978 fortune placed fred meyer as the 45th largest retail company by sales . 2 the chain had over 1 billion in sales in 1979 . 2 in 1981 the company was purchased by kohlberg kravis roberts in what was one of kkr s first major leveraged buyouts . 7 8 as of may 1988 the chain had 99 stores in six states . 9 california expansion and retreat edit in the 1990s fred meyer expanded into california by opening a store in chico . plans had been made to open a store in redding and expand into sacramento with several sites having been acquired . eventually the chico location was closed and sold and the sacramento sites sold ; the redding site eventually became a wal mart store in 1996 . acquisitions of grand central and smith s edit packaged food aisles at the fred meyer location at interstate avenue and lombard street in portland . in 1984 fred meyer acquired grand central of salt lake city utah . the grand central stores in utah and idaho were converted to fred meyer stores although most did not receive full supermarket departments until the mid 1990s . in 1997 fred meyer inc. acquired smith s food and drug of salt lake city though both companies maintained separate operations . in 1998 fred meyer acquired ralphs grocery company of los angeles california and qfc of seattle . both acquisitions also maintained separate operations with fred meyer inc. as the holding company . in that fast string of mergers fred meyer quickly became the nation s fifth largest food and drug store operator . in 1997 fred meyer converted its columbia falls and kalispell stores into smith s food & drug stores and closed its polson location . in 2001 the kalispell store was demolished and replaced with a newer smiths location adjacent to the older obsolete store . the columbia falls store retained the fred meyer decor with smith s logos over the old fred meyer logos but only contained a grocery department with none of the other departments or product offerings . merger with kroger edit in may 1999 fred meyer inc. merged with kroger of cincinnati ohio . in 2000 the arizona fred meyer stores all of which were formerly smith s stores that fred meyer acquired in the smith s merger were re branded as fry s marketplace . in 2004 smith s food and drug assumed the operations of the utah fred meyer stores which were re branded as smith s marketplace . also since the acquisition of the fred meyer company kroger has been unifying standards across the company adopting many of the fred meyer store standards and implementing their own standards to the fred meyer stores . kroger and fred meyer stores are slowly becoming more similar in management and merchandising . additionally one fred meyer in seattle in the capitol hill neighborhood merged its operations with qfc which had a grocery store across the street from the broadway market . this particular fred meyer probably the smallest one in the chain had only drugs and general merchandise but no food or apparel . this store is now a qfc marketplace the only one of its kind but it is not signed as such . store design edit a fred meyer with a franchised starbucks in marysville washington departments edit a typical fred meyer store has the following departments food groceries meat and seafood deli produce bakery health and beauty natural foods and pet care ; apparel clothing shoes accessories and cosmetics ; home housewares and home decor bed and bath home improvement and garden furniture sporting goods automotive toys and seasonal merchandise ; electronics televisions computers and software video games cameras music and videos ; customer service customer information desk with merchandise exchange fax and western union money orders game licenses and tobacco sales . additional services edit many stores include several other amenities such as a prescription pharmacy fred meyer jewelers playland day care area franchised coffee kiosk and fred meyer fuel stop . additionally many location lease internal or adjoining retail space to complementary businesses such as chase bank or alaska usa federal credit union locksmith or shoe repair or a full coffee shop . alternate store formats edit not all fred meyer stores conform to the conventional hypermarket format . while still department style stores fred meyer has two additional formats used in smaller legacy locations . fred meyer marketplace edit frame fred meyer marketplace is a comparatively compact fred meyer centered on a full service grocery section with many of the other departments missing or considerably smaller than a full size fred meyer store . these are usually older buildings in more central locations