Since 2006, Jewel Osco has been a part of the Supervalu family. Jewel is a Midwest supermarket chain in Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana. Jewel was founded in 1899 by Frank Vernon Skiff in Chicago, Illinois. Originally a coffee delivery service, Jewel Tea Company joined with Jewel in 1902. The transition to grocery store began in 1932 with the purchase of the Loblaw Groceterias and several Chicago grocery stores and running them all as Jewel Food Stores. After continuing to expand, in 1961 the Jewel Food Stores bought Osco Pharmacy. Present day, these stores reside under the same roof, though Jewel is still the grocery store part and Osco functions as the pharmacy. The store is also widely credited with being the first grocery store to market its own generic brand. Through a series of acquisitions, Jewel Osco now is owned by the same parent company that owns Albertson’s supermarket.
The Jewel Osco location in Springfield, Illinois is not owned by the SuperValu company, but rather were bought by Cerberus Capital Management, now Niemann Foods who runs them as a Cub Foods. Any Osco pharmacy not run inside a Jewel Foodstore has been converted into a CVS Pharmacy. Jewel has also attempted several times to run what is known as a Jewel Grand Bazaar. The grand bazaar stores were 24-hour, city block wide stores that incorporated free samples and bulk packaging. Both grand bazaar store attempts have been converted back to regular Jewel Osco Stores.
Jewel Osco prides itself on being a community store and supporting the communities by donating to not-for-profit organizations in the community. Their focus is on organizations that address hunger relief, nutritional education, and environmental stewardship. The grocery store offers a variety of services, including online shopping, catering to nursing homes, dry cleaning, FlavoRx, MoneyGram, Public Fax, pharmacy, and a variety of different bilingual customer service representatives. The website can give you an idea of the services available at each local store.
Signing up for a free Preferred Card allows for savings each time you checkout of the grocery store. Also, you can get personalized savings simply by using the preferred card. When you visit the Jewel Osco site, the first page offers you the ability to enter your zip code to find coupons and savings. The weekly ads for your store, personalized coupons by your Preferred Card number as well as printable in-store coupons. If you register your Jewel Osco Preferred Card, they will also send coupons through the mail from $5 to $50 off of various products. Jewel Osco will honor most grocery coupons from the manufacturers and in recent years have been dropping prices about 20% to remain competitive with other supermarket chains. You can also visit sundaysaver.com to get access to the sales circulars for Jewel Osco.
