BI-LO (United States)

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For unrelated Australian chain, see BI-LO (Australia).

BI-LO

Type	Private
Founded	1961
Headquarters	Mauldin, South Carolina
Key people	Brian Hotarek, president & CEO
Industry	Retail (Grocery)
Products	Bakery, dairy, deli, frozen foods, general grocery, meat, pharmacy, produce, seafood, snacks
Revenue	$3.6 billion USD (2006)
Employees	17,000
Website	www.bi-lo.com

BI-LO is a supermarket chain headquartered in Mauldin, South Carolina. It operates stores in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Supermarket News ranked BI-LO/Bruno's No. 34 in the 2007 "Top 75 North American Food Retailers" based on 2006 fiscal year estimated sales of $3.6 billion.^[1]

[edit] History

BI-LO was founded in 1961 by Frank L. Outlaw. The original name was Wrenn & Outlaw. The company was officially named BI-LO in 1963 after Outlaw conducted an employee store-naming contest to develop the "brand." His secretary, Edna Plumblee, won the contest by submitting the name "BI-LO." Bi-Lo was sold to Ahold (a Dutch retail conglomerate) in 1977. In 1994, Ahold purchased Red Food Stores, Inc. and merged its locations (around 55 of them) in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee into BI-LO the following year.^[2]^[3] In 2001, Ahold purchased the Birmingham, Alabama based Bruno's Supermarkets chain and combined its operations with BI-LO.

A Super Bi-Lo storefront in Rock Hill, SC

In 2005, Ahold sold BI-LO/Bruno's to Lone Star Funds.^[4] In order to concentrate on renovating older stores, building new ones, and investing in newer information technology, the new owners sold off 104 BI-LO and Bruno's stores in areas where the chain did not have significant market penetration as well as the three BI-LO/Bruno's distribution centers to grocery wholesaler, C&S Wholesale Grocers who converted some of the stores to Southern Family Markets.^[5]

On March 21, 2007, Lone Star Funds announced that they were spinning off the 67 Bruno's Supermarkets and Food World stores from BI-LO LLC into a separate company to be based out of Birmingham.^[6] On April 16, 2007, Lone Star announced that they were putting the 230-store BI-LO chain up for sale. Soon after, C&S announced that it was closing the Chattanooga distribution center that served the BI-LO's in the Chattanooga area and portions of Northern Georgia. ^[7]

In 1998, the company sponsored the construction of the BI-LO Center in Greenville, South Carolina.

In 2003, BI-LO invested in redesigning its store layout to attract high end customers. The result was the new Super BI-LO concept featuring a larger store layout with added emphasis on health foods, specialty foods and organic products as well as unrivaled customer service. Since then the company has opened new Super BI-LO branded stores as well as remodeled older stores in affluent neighborhoods. ^[8]

As of December 2007, BI-LO operates 222 supermarkets in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee and employs approximately 17,000 people. ^[9]