The Treasure Valley's third favorite Grocery store needs no introduction. Not onlly does Fred Meyer provide the best selection (after WinCo) -and the best shopping experience (after Albertsons) in the known universe-it also provides hundreds of Treasure Valley residents with gainful employment.

Fred Meyer, Inc., is a chain of hypermarkets founded in 1922 in Portland, Oregon, by Fred G. Meyer. The company was one of the pioneers of one-stop shopping, eventually combining a complete grocery supermarket with a drugstore, clothing store, shoe store, fine jewelers, home decor store, home improvement center, garden center, electronics store, toy store, sporting goods store, and more under one roof.

Fred Meyer stores are throughout Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska. Before the company's merger with Kroger in October 1998, it traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol FMY. Although the company is now a division of Kroger, the stores are still branded Fred Meyer, and the western region of the Kroger Corporation is headquartered in Portland.

Fred Meyer is sometimes known as "Freddy’s", a nickname the company was given by its customers and which is used in its advertising. For a number of years, the company has used the marketing slogan What's on your list today? You'll find it at Fred Meyer! or more simply What's on your list today? in its advertising.

Beginnings Fred G. Meyer, originally of New York City, opened his first public market at the corner of Fifth and Yamhill in downtown Portland in 1922. In 1928, Mr. Meyer opened the first self-service drug store.

The first suburban one-stop shopping center opened in 1931 in the Hollywood District of Portland, a neighborhood he deliberately chose through a shrewd and prescient application of market research: he would pay customers' overtime parking tickets that they incurred while shopping at his downtown store, just to obtain their home addresses. The store's innovations included a grocery store alongside a drugstore plus home products, off-street parking, gas station, and—eventually—clothing. Fred G. Meyer would base store locations on planned highway construction.

In 1951, the Fred Meyer Company built a large warehouse near Providence Portland Medical Center in Laurelhurst, despite complaints and controversy from neighbors and the city council. Neighbors didn't want large truck volume in their city, but the area was already zoned for industrial and commercial east of 44th Avenue. The huge warehouse was built to the detriment of the Banfield Expressway, built in Sullivan's Gulch less than five years later. The warehouse had to be condemned and partially destroyed for the freeway, with the state highway commission selling the remaining sections to the Bemis Company. The Fred Meyer Company moved to Swan Island on land formerly occupied by wartime housing for Kaiser Shipyards.

In the 1960s, Fred Meyer entered the Seattle market by acquiring Seattle-based Marketime Drugs. Fred Meyer also acquired a Spokane-based grocery wholesaler, The Roundup Company. Roundup owned no stores in Spokane but owned Kalispell, Montana, based B&B stores in northwest Montana and Consumer Warehouse Foods in Soap Lake, Washington.

By March 1968, Fred Meyer Inc. was operating in four states – Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana – and had 48 retail stores. Later in 1968, the first full-fledged Fred Meyer in the Seattle area opened, in Lynnwood, Washington. It was also the largest Fred Meyer for about a decade.

Valu-Mart acquisition, death of Fred MeyerIn 1975, after several decades of growth in the Portland area, Fred Meyer purchased the Pacific Northwest-based Valu-Mart. Valu-Mart had been renamed Leslies about a year before. In 1975, Fred Meyer opened its first stores in Alaska as a result of acquiring Leslies/Valu-Mart, and changed the Leslies/Valu Mart stores to the Fred Meyer banner. As Fred Meyer became better known in the Seattle area, the Marketime Drug chain became known as Fred Meyer-Marketime.

In 1977, Marketime was renamed Fred Meyer. In the mid-1980s, the Northwest Montana B&B stores also took on the Fred Meyer name.

On September 2, 1978, Mr. Meyer died at the age of 92. Until his death, Mr. Meyer had continued to play an active role in the day-to-day operation of his company. Also in 1978, Fortune placed Fred Meyer as the 45th largest retail company by sales. The chain had over $1 billion in sales in 1979.

In 1982, the company was purchased by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in what was one of KKR's first major leveraged buyouts.

California Expansion and Retreat In the 1990s Fred Meyer expanded into California by opening a store in Chico. Plans had been made to expand into Sacramento with several sites having been acquired. Eventually the Chico location was closed and sold and the Sacramento sites sold.

Acquisitions of Grand Central and Smith's In 1985, Fred Meyer acquired Grand Central of Salt Lake City, Utah. The Grand Central stores in Utah and Idaho were converted to Fred Meyer stores, although most did not receive full supermarket departments until the mid 1990s.

In 1997, Fred Meyer Inc. acquired Smith's Food and Drug of Salt Lake City, though both companies maintained separate operations. In 1998, Fred Meyer acquired Ralphs Grocery Company of Los Angeles, California, and QFC of Seattle. Both acquisitions also maintained separate operations with Fred Meyer, Inc. as the holding company. In that fast string of mergers, Fred Meyer quickly became the nation's fifth largest food and drug store operator.

In 1997, Fred Meyer converted its Columbia Falls and Kalispell stores into Smith's Food & Drug Stores, and closed its Polson location. In 2001, the Kalispell store was demolished and replaced with a newer Smiths location adjacent to the older, obsolete store. The Columbia Falls store retained the Fred Meyer decor (with Smith's logos over the old Fred Meyer logos) but only contained a grocery department, with none of the other departments or product offerings.

Merger with Kroger In May 1999 Fred Meyer, Inc. merged with Kroger of Cincinnati, Ohio. In 2000, the Arizona Fred Meyer stores, all of which were formerly Smitty's stores that Fred Meyer acquired in the Smith's merger, were re-branded as Fry's Marketplace.

In 2004, Smith's Food and Drug assumed the operations of the Utah Fred Meyer stores, which were re-branded as Smith's Marketplace. Also, since the acquisition of the Fred Meyer Company, Kroger has been unifying standards across the company, adopting many of the Fred Meyer store standards, and implementing their own standards to the Fred Meyer stores. Kroger and Fred Meyer stores are slowly becoming more similar in management and merchandising.

Additionally, one Fred Meyer in Seattle in the Capitol Hill district merged its operations with QFC which had a grocery store across the street from the Broadway Market. This particular Fred Meyer, probably the smallest one in the chain, had only drugs, general merchandise, but no food or apparel. This store is now a QFC Marketplace, the only one of its kind, but it is not signed as such.