The durable Fry’s Food and Drug chain, an Arizona institution, has announced plans to build another four new supermarkets in the Grand Canyon State before the end of next year.
Headquartered in Tolleson, Arizona, the company operates nearly 130 stores in the state, along with around one hundred fuel stations.
While those stores are strategically located in all regions of the state, the company’s greatest market saturation has always been in metro Phoenix, where it currently has 27 stores.
Founded in Contra Costa County, California, Fry’s begin its expansion into Phoenix in 1960, opening a store that featured “Arizona’s largest service meat department.” By the 1990s, the chain had around 90 stores in the state.
At the end of that decade, the chain became a division of the Kroger Company.
The new stores come in the wake of an expansion plan that has seen the company build seven stores in Arizona during the last five years, representing an overall investment of more than $550 million.
While the company’s traditional stores ranged in size between 20,000 and 40,000 square feet, its Marketplace stores can be as large as 105,000 square feet.
In announcing the expansion plans, Monica Garnes, president of the company, remarked that the building of those stores, “demonstrates Fry’s significant commitment to Arizona,” as well as its “positive impact on the state’s economy and employment numbers.”
To date, only one location for the new Arizona stores has been announced: a $43 million Fry’s superstore in Marana.
By Garry Boulard
