The Independent Grocers Alliance (IGA) was founded in 1926, bringing together independent grocers across the United States to ensure that the trusted, family-owned local grocery store remained strong in the face of growing chain competition. (IGA)
Unlike the chain store business model, IGA operates as a franchise through stores that are owned separately from the brand. (IGA)
“Instead of trying to set up the ramifications for how these local businesses should be run – say, specific building designs, like you might run into at a McDonald’s – it instead offered different kinds of help to those retailers. “
“That help, traditionally, has come in the form of marketing and access to a consistent supply chain. After a few years, the company even began making its own canned foods.”
“And though IGA helped its members, when it came down to it, the owner of the store was still the guy in the stockroom, writing reports and cutting the checks.” (Smith)
“This organization has helped independent grocers in 46 states to increase their sales and modernize their stores. IGA has become the world’s largest voluntary foodstore chain.”
“It has given its members the same tools as those of their larger corporate competitors, and there are several markets where IGA independent grocers are the sales volume leaders.” (Sen Mike Mansfield, 1966)
One such Hawai‘i IGA store was the Hale‘iwa Super Market. Kasaku Sakai had the first store in 1907; it was situated where First Hawaiian Bank is now located and it was named K Sakai Shoten. (Miller, MidWeek)
Former plantation workers Kasaku and Tomi Sakai served the Hale‘iwa community and plantation workers for many years. “It used to be a horse and buggy days they used to go out plantation camps Dole and sugar plantations. Take orders and deliver them.”
Later, Kasaku’s illness forced his son, Charles Sakai, to take over the small general store. (Advertiser)
In the mid-1950s, Charles and his wife Myrtle Sakai moved the store across the street (where Pioneer Ace Hardware now stands) to expand it into a supermarket concept and a cash-and-carry system. (Advertiser)
In 1975, they expanded the business again and moved back across the street to its last location on Kamehameha Highway next to the town’s courthouse. (Advertiser & Miller, MidWeek)
For over 100 years four generations of one family ran the Haleiwa Super Market; at its peak, the market employed more than 60 people. It shut down in 2009 and a Long Drugs replaced it.
Today, the Independent Grocers Alliance includes nearly 5,000 Hometown Proud Supermarkets worldwide, with stores in 46 of the United States and more than 30 countries, commonwealths and territories around the globe. (IGA)
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