Associated Wholesale Grocers
Historical Timeline
-1936-1938
--
--2010
The late 1930’s were a time of expansion for AG with the
purchase of two warehouses. The first, the Associated
Grocers warehouse in Joplin, Missouri came in 1936. Two
years later, AG purchased all the merchandise from the
bankrupt United Grocers, Springfield, Missouri warehouse.
T hese two facilities enabled AG to expand its service
coverage area throughout southern and southwest
Missouri and into eastern Kansas.
-1985
--
-1956
--
AWG moved from the warehouse it had occupied for more
than two decades across the state line into a 200,000
square foot facility in the Fairfax District in Kansas City,
Kansas. The 7,500 square foot freezer stocked 400 items
which were packed in insulated chests and loaded on dry
grocery trucks for delivery to stores. In Springfield, in 1965, a 200,000 square foot warehouse
was built to serve the needs of a growing customer base
in Southwest Missouri and Arkansas.
The first Universal Product Code
(UPC) was rolled out which led to the
arrival of checkout scanning in 1974.
The revolution had started.
-1972
--
-1926
Associated Wholesale
Grocers is one of the largest
grocery wholesalers in
the United States and the
nation’s oldest grocery
cooperative. Founded in
1924 and incorporated in
1926, AWG has enjoyed
over 90 years of growth and
success.
-1974
--
As consumers began spending
more money at restaurants (38
cents of every food dollar), retailers
searched for a way to satisfy the
public demand for convenience and
ready-to-eat items. This brought
about the addition of the bakerydeli department at AWG, and the
first Price Chopper to offer these
departments opened in 1985.
1953
In 1953, the company
name was changed to
Associated Wholesale
Grocers, Inc., (AWG) and
the following year, AWG
paid its first year-end
patronage of $20,441 to
members.
-2003
--
AWG expanded into
the southeast with the
acquisition of two grocery
distribution centers:
Goodlettsville, Tennessee
and Southaven, Mississippi.
This acquisition also
included a distribution
center in Memphis,
Tennessee now operated by
AWG’s Valu Merchandisers
(VMC) subsidiary.
-1986
--
By the end of the decade, AWG
had two new warehouses. In
Springfield, a 300,000 square foot
facility was built to replace the
one destroyed by fire in 1970, and
in Kansas City the long-awaited
565,000 square foot office and
warehouse complex was ready for
occupancy in 1972.
-1974-76
--
The former Homeland
warehouse in Oklahoma City
became AWG’s third division.
Valu Merchandisers, AWG’s
wholly-owned subsidiary
supplying health and beauty
care products and general
merchandise, came on line
offering a selection of more
than 12,000 items from its
219,000 square foot facility in
Fort Scott, Kansas.
The development of the Price Chopper/
Price Mart and Country Mart concepts
and the rollouts of Always Save and Best
Choice gave retailers the tools necessary
to satisfy a price conscious public.
Sales of AWG’s private label products
reached the $1 billion mark for the
first time.
--2007
AWG acquired its newest
distribution center in Fort
Worth, Texas.
-1996
--
Also in 2007, AWG built a
brand new, state-of-theart distribution center in
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Sales for 1996
topped $3 billion
for the first time.
--2013
In 2011, AWG broke
ground on its newest
division in the Gulf
Coast. This warehouse
began shipping on
January 20, 2013
--2012
AWG completed
an expansion of its
headquarters in Kansas
City, KS. The newly
expanded complex
houses over one-thousand
employees, including the
AWG corporate office
and the Kansas City
distribution center, as well
as 100 employees from
the Valu Merchandisers
subsidiary.