Supermercados Santa Isabel () is a chain of supermarkets throughout Chile that are owned by

Cencosud Cencosud S.A. is a publicly traded retail company based in Chile. It is the largest retail company in Chile and the third largest listed retail company in Latin America, competing with the Brazilian Companhia Brasileira de Distribuição and the ...

. The stores have an average area of 1,500 square meters.

History

Origins

Santa Isabel was founded in

Valparaíso Valparaíso () is a major city, Communes of Chile, commune, Port, seaport, and naval base facility in the Valparaíso Region of Chile. Valparaíso was originally named after Valparaíso de Arriba, in Castilla–La Mancha, Castile-La Mancha, Spain ...

, Chile in 1976 by Eduardo Elberg. Until the mid-1990s he maintained organic growth within the

Valparaíso Province Valparaíso Province () is one of eight provinces of the central Chilean region of Valparaíso (V). Its capital is the coastal city of Valparaíso (pop. 275,982). Administration As a province, Valparaíso is a second-level administrative division ...

and the historic Los Lagos province now split into Los Lagos and Los Ríos provinces. In 1996 an aggressive plan was started to expand the company both nationally and internationally. During this expansion the company went public and entered the Chilean capital region, Peru, and Paraguay under the subsidiary Supermercados Stock. In July 1996 the company bought Multimarket's 25 locations in Santiago and the country's south under the Multimarket and Gigante monikers. During September of said year Santa Isabel acquired ten Marmentini Letelier stores in the Metropolitana Region and

San Antonio San Antonio ( ; Spanish for " Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the ...

areas. At the same time the company expanded to Ecuador. In 1997 the company was acquired by Velox Group, owner of Argentine stores

Disco Disco is a music genre, genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightclub, nightlife, particularly in African Americans, African-American, Italian-Americans, Italian-American, LGBTQ ...

. Towards the end of the 1990s the company operated 63 branches in Chile under the Santa Isabel name, and also Hipermercados Stock in Peru and Ecuador. Santa Isabel Limache

In 1999 it was procured by

Ahold Koninklijke Ahold N.V. was a Dutch multinational retail company based in Zaandam, Netherlands. Founded in 1887 by Albert Heijn Sr., the company initially began as a single grocery store in Oostzaan and became the largest grocery chain in the ...

during the purchase of Disco Argentina.Ahold acquires stores in Latin America , Royal Ahold
Previously Santa Isabel had absorbed Supermercados Agas (that also owned Supermercados Uriarte). At this time the company created the Tops en Hipermercados concept which replaced the Stock brand.

Cencosud era

South American multinational titan

bought out Santa Isabel and Tops completely in 2003. Santa Isabel locations were used to complement and not compete with the corporation's existing

Jumbo Hypermarkets Jumbo is a Chilean hypermarket chain with a presence in Chile, Argentina, and Colombia. Founded in 1976 by Horst Paulmann, Jumbo is a subsidiary and pillar of the Cencosud business consortium, which also owns Santa Isabel, Disco, Super Vea, and ...

as neighborhood markets. Later the company bought out Las Brisas, Extra and Monte Carlo supermarkets in 2004 rebranding them Santa Isabels. The same thing was done with the 2006 acquisition of Economax markets.

References

External links

Santa Isabel website
{{Cencosud Supermarkets of Chile Cencosud Retail companies established in 1976 1976 establishments in Chile Chilean brands