Giant-Stop & Shop

Giant-Stop & Shop is a company owned by Ahold USA, a subsidiary of Royal Ahold. It was formed in 2004 by a merger of Giant Food and Stop & Shop, two formerly separate companies within Ahold USA. It is the largest supermarket chain currently in existence in the Mid-Atlantic region.

In early 2004, Royal Ahold made the move to end local management at Giant Food's headquarters in Landover, Maryland. Ahold also named Shop & Shop's chief executive Marc E. Smith as the new head of Giant Food.

Throughout the conversion process, there have been ongoing problems with the combined Giant-Stop & Shop company, such as Giant stores running out of products and not receiving shipments of the products, receiving wrong products, registers were showing wrong prices or not calculating sales tax.

In March 2005, Giant-Stop & Shop announced that they have entered into a collaboration with Staples, Inc. for a Staples branded store-within-store section for all 550 Stop & Shop Supermarkets and Giant Food supermarkets in the Northeast region. The section will debut in July of 2005. The area will range from 40 to 80 feet in size and carry 400 to 1,200 products that will be a wide variety of national school and home office brands as well as Staples brand products. Some products will make its inital debut within Giant-Stop & Shop supermarkets. The area will not only carry just traditional school and home office products but it will also carry items such as copy and photo paper, ink cartridges, and technology products. Before Giant-Stop & Shop's/Staples joint announcement, the Staples store-within-store concept was first tested in 60 Stop & Shop supermarkets. [Source: Stop & Shop/Giant Launch Staples Branded School and Home Office Supplies Sections in its 550 Supermarkets Throughout the Northeast ].