New Ownership and 1980s Expansion
Harris Teeter was purchased in 1969 by holding company Ruddick Corporation of Charlotte, North Carolina. After selling its only other holding, American and Efird Thread, this year, Ruddick will now be officially changing its name to the "Harris-Teeter Corporation Inc". This will take place early in 2012 to bring more image recognition for Ruddick through the highly successful Harris Teeter grocery store chain.
In 1970 the chain introduced the Big M discount concept to compete with Colonial Stores Big Star and A&P's "WEO". Those stores were mainly in working-class neighborhoods, while upper-class areas retained Harris Teeter. By 1976, the chain merged the two back to Harris Teeter/More Value and finally Harris Teeter in 1979.
Harris Teeter's 1980 acquisition of the Hunter Farms dairy in High Point, North Carolina, enabled the company to substantially reduce dairy costs; today, all Harris Teeter-brand and Hunter Farms-brand dairy products come from the Hunter dairy. Hunter also provides dairy products to companies and organizations not associated with Harris Teeter, including convenience stores, schools, Lowe's Foods private label ice creams and the Wendy's Frosty.
In 1984 Harris Teeter purchased several Food World stores in and around Greensboro, also acquiring a warehouse in the western part of Greensboro as part of the purchase. This marked the first foray of the company outside its Charlotte base and also began a demographic shift still in process today. Before this point, the company was a grocer in the vein of Piggly Wiggly, where a mix of rural and urban stores made up the company in general. Past this point, Harris Teeter began to focus more on higher-income urban sites. This trend continued with HT's 1988 purchase of Big Star Supermarkets, giving it a foothold in the Raleigh-Durham market.
Ashcraft retired in 1986, and Edward Dunn took over as president of Harris Teeter in that year. On Dunn's watch, Harris Teeter began expansion outside North Carolina. The first expanded stores were in northern South Carolina, near Charlotte; later expansions led the company to Myrtle Beach, Charleston, and the Hampton Roads region of Virginia. The "Very Important Customer" (VIC) program, popularly known as VIC, was introduced late in Dunn's tenure. This program was one of the first widespread loyalty card programs now popular throughout American grocery stores. The VIC program advertised "giveaways" such as turkeys for Thanksgiving, beach apparel for the summer, and gift cards to Harris Teeter stores.
In 1981 Harris Teeter was one of the first grocery chains to test plastic grocery bags. In 1985 they added child-restraint belts to shopping carts. The chain's flagship store during the 1980s was in Charlotte's Cotswold neighborhood. It featured a waterfall and a fresh orange juice machine in the produce department, and for a brief period stocked fresh truffles that were flown in from France and priced at $300 a pound.
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