Miller's/Del Farm in Denver

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Groceteria
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Miller's/Del Farm in Denver

Post by Groceteria »

When researching Denver locations, I noticed that some of the Miller's locations that were rebranded by National as Del Farm were listed in the 1976 city directory as "National." Does anyone know if this was an actual rebranding, or just how they happen to be listed in the directory that year based on their ownership? Either way, they all seem to have been gone by 1979

As an aside, one was actually listed as something called "National T Co.", which would have been an interesting play on the Jewel T stores in Florida, California, etc. if it were an actual brand that was used. I suspect it may have been a typo, though.
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Re: Miller's/Del Farm in Denver

Post by rich »

There was an actual rebranding. They did this in some markets or branded only new ground-up stores with this banner (they did this in Indianapolis). It usually was more price sensitive banner. The format was short lived in some places and then they kept the banner but advertised with the main National banner. This is how they finished out their time in Denver (Miller-Del Farm) and Indy (Standard-Del Farm). They did something a bit similar with their earlier Big D discount rebannering--most of those stores returned to a conventional National format but kept the Big D name.
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Re: Miller's/Del Farm in Denver

Post by Groceteria »

Thanks. So you're saying there was no subsequent rebranding of the Del Farm stores as National late in the game, right? Del Farm was the last banner used?

If so, I guess the National listings were maybe just a quirk in the city directories...which is not altogether unusual.
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Re: Miller's/Del Farm in Denver

Post by rich »

Right, no rebranding. National left Denver some time in the 70s.
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Re: Miller's/Del Farm in Denver

Post by Steve Landry »

rich wrote:Right, no rebranding. National left Denver some time in the 70s.

Rich, are you sure about that?

I am pretty confident that I saw the moniker, National on store fronts. I think I even remember noticing a label scare (Del Farm) behind a National sign and asking someone about it.

I was in Denver around 1977.

:-)
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Re: Miller's/Del Farm in Denver

Post by rich »

As far as I can recall from their newspaper ads they were using both brands until they left---Miller was the pioneer supermarket chain and I believe they inherited their first drug stores from that acquisition. Loblaw-Canada made enough investment in the various stores to make them sellable, even in unprofitable areas like their Youngstown division, but I think the only place they rebranded was in Chicago which oddly was the source of the Del Farm banner (mostly inner city stores).
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Re: Miller's/Del Farm in Denver

Post by pseudo3d »

National Tea (National) was at one time a larger supermarket chain. I believe it was right up there with the big guys, A&P, Safeway, and Kroger, and another smaller player. In their later days, National had an inverted Loblaws logo for an "n", but Loblaws never rebranded the stores until the mid-1990s when they sold off their last two divisions (New Orleans and St. Louis).
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Re: Miller's/Del Farm in Denver

Post by wnetmacman »

pseudo3d wrote:National Tea (National) was at one time a larger supermarket chain. I believe it was right up there with the big guys, A&P, Safeway, and Kroger, and another smaller player. In their later days, National had an inverted Loblaws logo for an "n", but Loblaws never rebranded the stores until the mid-1990s when they sold off their last two divisions (New Orleans and St. Louis).
The inverted L logo was used throughout Missouri, IL and Louisiana during the chain's last days there. Until 8-9 years ago, there were still a few locations where that logo was still up, including the former Kroger Family Center in Morgan City, LA. Toward the end, all of the stores except the Real Superstores used this logo, and they even had it on packaging. I don't know if that logo was old enough to have been at Del Farm or not, or if when they rebranded those stores to National they used it there. I know it was quite popular here.

Louisiana had National stores until the logo change, then most that remained National were rebranded to Canal Villere. Interesting that they were taking the Del Farm name off but putting Canal Villere on at around the same time.
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