ShopRite Supermarkets is a retailers' cooperative chain of supermarkets in the northeastern United States, with stores in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Based in Keasbey, New Jersey, ShopRite consists of 47 individually owned-and-operated affiliates with more than 230 stores, all under its corporate and distribution arm, Wakefern Food Corporation. Wakefern itself owns and operates 27 of the locations through subsidiary ShopRite Supermarkets, and is the largest affiliate in the cooperative. As of 2011, ShopRite is the largest retailer of food in... Greater Philadelphia, pushing ACME Markets to number 2 after many decades of dominance in that region. As of 2010, Wakefern was ranked 16 by sales among all supermarket operators in the US. ShopRite originated in 1946, when a Del Monte Foods sales representative talked to independent grocers in Newark, New Jersey. The grocers were having problems getting reasonable prices for wholesale goods. The Del Monte representative suggested the grocers try cooperative buying. Seven of the grocers agreed; paying $1,000 each to launch Wakefern Foods, which was incorporated on December 5, 1946.
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