K-VA-T Food Stores mark 50 years of growth

Virginia Business
January 2006

Fifty years ago, Jack Smith waited in a checkout line for 45 minutes at a grocery store in Grundy and quickly got it in his head that the town could use a competing supermarket. In 1955, he opened a Piggly Wiggly franchise in Grundy hoping that the business would do well enough for him to make a living and raise his family.

Thanks to what he calls “blind luck” (his initial competitor was washed out during a flood) and good employees, he not only set himself up in a secure job but created one of the most successful regional supermarket chains in the country: K-VA-T Food Stores Inc., a $1.3 billion business that includes 93 Food City supermarkets in Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky and 11,000-plus employees.

Smith recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of his enterprise with his family and employees, including son Steven, who is now president and CEO.

“We have always had a motto and philosophy and direction: Run the best store in town,” says Jack Smith, who shed his status as a Piggly Wiggly franchisee and began operating his stores under the name Food City in 1986. The chain draws customers by keeping its prices competitive with Wal-Mart but providing more customer service. “We try to live up to that, and for the most part, we’ve succeeded.”

Passing the half-century milestone, however, won’t slow down the Smiths in their quest to continue to expand their family-owned business. Steven and Jack Smith are working to establish a string of discount grocery stores called Super Dollar, which are designed for towns not big enough to support a large supermarket. Two stores have opened — one in Wytheville and the other in Abingdon — and a third is planned for Hillsville.

The future of the company will continue to rest squarely on the shoulders of its employees, Jack Smith says. In the early years, he says, he had little to no turnover at his various supermarkets, so in order to promote good employees, the company would simply build another store and create the promotion. “That’s how we grew in the early years, and it hasn’t changed since,” he says.