Winco (short for "Winning Company") is a supermarket located in South Chico. It is employee owned, meaning that current and former employees of the company are the stockholders, and thus have a limited say in the company's operations in the form of being able to vote for the board of directors. The majority of the power is held by the richest executives who own most of the shares. When the company came to Chico in the 1990s, it was known as Waremart, and the company changed the name of all of the stores, including Chico, to Winco in 1999.

The supermarket is a very large, warehouse style store. It has all of the standard sections (produce, meat, dairy, etc) that one would expect to find in your average grocery store, and also has a very large bulk selection. There are dozens of bulk bins with everything from nuts and baking supplies to candies and cereals. Note that like many of warehouse style stores (such as FoodMaxx), you are expected to bag your own groceries. Furthermore, Winco does not accept credit cards, so do not find yourself there without a non-credit means to pay for your groceries.

Winco's business strategy is low margin, high volume. They make money because when customers see low prices the customers buy even more. Often you see customers leaving with carts filled with hundreds of dollars of food. It is easy to get carried away and buy stuff that you didn't really need in the first place.

Often with warehouse type stores, the quality of the food is hit or miss. To get low prices, the produce and meat is bought by Winco in bulk. Often there is a large amount that is not as fresh due to the length of time that it has been sitting around in warehouses.

This article is in need of a Photo.To add an image to this page, click "Edit" then click the "Files" button.

Comments

2009-05-08 20:16:14   I heard from an instructor at Butte College that Winco beats prices by buying produce that other supermarkets won't. I have no idea if this is true or not so take it with a grain of salt! —RyanMikulovsky

2009-05-08 20:36:40   Winco buys the leftover lower quality stuff that does not sell well. The produce quality often suffers as well as the meat quality. —MaxLucas

2009-05-08 21:00:26   Though safeway has better quality beef ribs for better prices on SALE DATES, the beef rack ribs are fantastic there and are usually about 4 bucks a pop. Feeds about two. They are one of the few reasons I prefer winco to foodmaxx or safeway (price vs quality on the latter two) —JohnNash

2012-06-02 18:12:40   While it was called Waremart in Chico it was Cubes in Nevada with the layout reversed in opposite ends but the decor was exactly identical in both stores. —76.14.199.23

2012-06-02 18:13:20   How did it come out as Cubes? I meant to say Cubs Foods. I guess I got carried away in my excitement. :( —76.14.199.23