The name "Wakefern" is a portmanteau of the founders' names: W for Louis Weiss, A for Sam and Al Aidekman, K for Abe Kesselman, E for Leo Eisenberg, and FERN for Dave Fern, although the company adopted the name ShopRite for its stores in 1951.
Cooperative Overview
Wakefern owns one of the Northeast's largest trucking fleets and is the fourth-largest cooperative in the United States. In fiscal year 2016, its revenue was US$ 16 billion, and US$ 16.3 billion in 2017. In 2011, Supermarket News gave Wakefern its Retailer Excellence Award and The Griffin Report and Progressive Grocer named Wakefern its Retailer of the Year. In 2012, this company was named one of the Best Places to Work in N.J. by NJBIZ Magazine. As of 2011, Wakefern was ranked 17th by sales among all supermarket operators in the U.S. Wakefern also created and operates or franchises the Price Rite limited-assortment chain of stores in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Virginia. Dearborn Market is a supermarket in New Jersey. Readington Farms, Inc. processes and distributes milk products in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. On August 1, 2013, Wakefern acquired The Fresh Grocer, an eight-store chain based in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. One of the stores was converted to the ShopRite name while the others retained the Fresh Grocer name. Wakefern supplies all of its members' ShopRite stores as well as the Price Rite and The Fresh Grocer chains, and Dearborn Market. In July 2007, the cooperative announced that for the first time it was offering its wholesale services to third-party supermarket operators, in the Northeastern United States and other areas of the country. Since then, Wakefern has announced deals to supply the Gristedes and Morton Williams chains of supermarkets in the New York City area, Heinen's Fine Foods chain in Ohio, as well as The Market Place in Bermuda Wakefern also provides its members' stores with services such as: computer services, insurance, advertising, marketing, merchandising and procurement. Member stores include the publicly traded Village Super Market. Wakefern currently has a total of seven warehouses in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
