Michael Naylor

WinCo Foods

WinCo Foods is a family of employee-owned grocery stores, with its own distribution and transportation network. The company can trace its beginnings back to 1967 when Ralph Ward and Bud Williams founded a discount warehouse grocery store in Boise, Idaho under the name of Waremart. The company operated stores under the names of Waremart Food Centers and Cub Foods until 1999 when it changed its storefront name and the corporate name to WinCo Foods, which stands for Winning Company. WinCo Foods is currently owned by its employees. In 1985, the WinCo Foods Employee Stock Ownership Trust (Employee Pension Plan), headed by then president Bill Long and with full support of store personnel and management, purchased from the Ward family a majority interest of WinCo, giving WinCo employees a real ownership stake in the company. The company continued its rapid growth and by 2000 had replaced a majority of its retail stores with updated and expanded facilities. WinCo Foods currently has over 20,,000 employees and operates over 130 stores throughout Washington, Idaho, Nevada, California, Oregon, Utah, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma and Montana.