WinCo Foods, Inc.

Company type	Private, employee-owned
Industry	Retail
Founded	1967 (57 years ago) (1967)
Founders	Ralph Ward and Bud Williams
Headquarters	Boise, Idaho, U.S.
Number of locations	131[1]
Key people	Gary Piva, Chairman Grant Haag, President/CEO Richard Charrier, COO David Butler, CFO
Products	Bakery, grocery, produce, delicatessen, seafood, bulk foods, snacks, health and beauty products, general merchandise [2]
Services	Supermarket Online shopping and home delivery
Revenue	US$7.2 billion (2019)[3]
Number of employees	20,000 [4]
Website	www.wincofoods.com

WinCo Foods, Inc. is a privately held, majority employee-owned^[5][6][7] American supermarket chain based in Boise, Idaho, with retail stores in Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas,^[8] Utah, and Washington. It was founded in 1967 as a no-frills warehouse-style store with low prices. The stores feature extensive bulk food sections.

Until 1999, it operated as Waremart Food Centers and Cub Foods (under a franchise agreement). However, WinCo had begun reestablishing Waremart Foods in 2017. As of 2021^[update], WinCo has 131 retail stores and six distribution centers, with over 20,000 employees.^[1][9][10] As of June 2020, WinCo Foods was No. 59 in Forbes.com's list of the largest privately owned companies in the United States.

WinCo Foods is based in Boise, Idaho. It was founded in 1967, and the company is mostly owned by current and former employees through an employee stock ownership plan. WinCo operates distribution centers in:^[1]

• Woodburn, Oregon
• Myrtle Creek, Oregon
• Boise, Idaho
• Phoenix, Arizona
• Denton, Texas
• Modesto, California

The company reduces operating expenses by purchasing directly from manufacturers and farmers; operating basic, no-frills stores; bagging service is not provided.^[11] In addition the company does not accept credit cards for payment (debit and WIC/EBT cards are accepted).^[12]

The company, originally called "Waremart", was founded in Boise, Idaho, in 1967 by Ralph Ward and Bud Williams as a no-frills, warehouse-style grocery store focusing on low prices.^[7][13] In 1985, Waremart employees established an employee stock ownership plan and purchased a majority stake of Waremart from the Ward family, making the company employee-owned.^[7][13]

In January 1991, Waremart had opened an 82,000 square-foot store in Boise to replace the two older Boise stores.^[14] At the time, Waremart was operating 16 stores in the Northwest and had reported annual sales of more than $300 million.^[14]

In 1999, Waremart had changed its name to "WinCo Foods". It is a portmanteau of Winning Company, but the company says the name may also refer to the five states in which the company had operated stores at the time (Washington, Idaho, Nevada, California, and Oregon).^{[15][non-primary source needed]} Nonetheless, three Oregon stores—those in Independence, Keizer, and Ontario—are still branded as "Waremart by WinCo".

In 2007, WinCo Foods had accused a competing chain, Save Mart, of directing a lawsuit filed by a neighborhood group Tracy First of Tracy, California, to oppose city approval of a WinCo Foods store. That same year, WinCo Foods had opened in Pittsburg, California.^[16]

Early in 2009, WinCo Foods had opened its first two stores in the Spokane, Washington, area.^[17] In October, 2009, WinCo expanded to Utah, adding two stores in West Valley City and Midvale.^[13][18][19] An additional Utah store opened in Roy on June 28, 2010.^[20][21] bringing the total number of stores expanded to Utah to five.^[22] WinCo Foods had previously operated stores in Utah under the Waremart banner prior to the company's name change.^[13][23]

In January 2011, WinCo began signing leases for an expansion to Southern Nevada and Arizona.^[24] The chain opened stores in Las Vegas and Henderson, Nevada on March 4, 2012.^[25] The company's first two stores in Arizona opened on April 1, 2012 in the Phoenix area.^[26] The company had opened multiple locations in Texas, including the Dallas–Fort Worth area.^[1][27][28]

WinCo was named as the sponsor for the WinCo Foods Portland Open in June, 2013.^[29]

Later in 2014, WinCo Foods announced that it had entered the Oklahoma City metro market, starting with stores in Moore and Midwest City, with plans to open two other locations inside the metro.^[30] In March 2017, WinCo opened its 114th store in Moses Lake, Washington.^[31]

• Cub Foods
• List of companies based in Idaho
• List of supermarket chains in the United States
• Food cooperative

Wikimedia Commons has media related to WinCo Foods stores.

• WinCo Foods official website