Person:Joseph Hughes (26)

Joseph Hughes spent his adulthood working in grocery stores, starting in 1934 when he went to work for Thriftmart in New Jersey. He stayed with Thriftmart for nearly 20 years, then packed his bags in 1952 and made the transcontinental trip to southern California, where he would lay the foundation for one of the region's largest supermarket chains.

Although Hughes had spent nearly a lifetime's work at Thriftmart in New Jersey, he would spend another 30 years working as a grocery store operator in southern California. Hughes embarked on the second half of his lengthy career in 1952, when he opened a Thriftmart franchise in Studio City. From there he opened two more Thriftmart franchises during the next two years, one in Van Nuys and another in Hollywood. The opening of his next store, which was located in then-rural Granada Hills, marked a symbolic moment in Hughes's life. When he opened the doors to his fourth store, gone was the familiar Thriftmart sign marking the entrance. For the first time in 20 years, Hughes had no ties to Thriftmart. The sign above his store--the first store he could genuinely call his own--read: Hughes Market. Over the course of the next four decades, the sign that debuted in Granada Hills would become a fixture in the southern California supermarket industry, as Hughes and his family shaped the company into a powerful regional force.

Joe Hughes was brought up in an era when running a grocery store was a relatively uncomplicated task, a period when small, family-owned stores blanketed the country, dominated their industry, and rarely tried to be anything else than a grocery store. This would all change during Hughes Markets' development into an industry stalwart. During the latter half of the 20th century, grocery stores became shopping destinations aspiring to fulfill a broad spectrum of consumers' needs. As the size of stores swelled beyond 50,000 square feet, banks, pharmacies, lawn and garden departments, bakeries, on-site cooking establishments, and sundry other "concepts" made their debut, transforming the definition of the grocery store format. During this sweeping revolution within the grocery store industry, Hughes Markets rarely strayed from the original course charted by Joe Hughes, and when it did, success was generally the result.

Joe Hughes worked tirelessly at developing Hughes Markets into a success, working six days a week and spending the seventh driving around in his car to visit the stores in his fiefdom. Expansion, which many of his supermarket brethren financed by accumulating hefty bank debt or by relinquishing control to investors in exchange for cash, was pursued slowly and achieved debt-free. Joe Hughes expanded by acquiring small grocery store owners and parts belonging to larger operators. He stressed simplicity and a narrow focus, yet occasionally he emerged as an industry innovator. In the early 1960s, while Hughes was cementing his reputation as a traditionalist, he donned the hat of a pioneer by becoming the first supermarket chain operator in southern California to feature fresh fish markets in his stores.

Joe Hughes died in 1982, 30 years after he had arrived in southern California to open a Thriftmart franchise. During his years in the Los Angeles area, Hughes had built his namesake company into a roughly $400 million in sales grocery concern that was known for its emphasis on fresh produce, meats, fish, and customer service. Hughes Markets was regarded as a quiet and conservative member of the southern California supermarket fraternity.

[edit]