OUR HISTORY
Eighty years of success

Founded in 1927, H.S. Allen and a small group of Southern Alberta independent retailers pooled their resources to form a buying group called Associated Grocers. Operating out of 2000 square foot warehouse in downtown Calgary the company grew to 90 retailers in the first five years. By 1953 a growing Associated Grocers began to provide a variety of Marketing, Advertising and Support Services.

In 1982 Associated Grocers moved to the present 423,000 square foot warehouse in the Foothills Industrial Park in South East Calgary.

The company sold to Vancouver entrepreneur Jim Pattison in 1989 and for the next ten years operated as the wholesale division of the Overwaitea Food Group. Following a restructuring in January 2000 Associated Grocers became a division of British Columbia based Buy-Low Foods which the Pattison Group had purchased in 1995.

Today the combined company of Associated Grocers and Buy-Low Foods supplies over 900 locations in Western Canada.

We are the "Home of the Independent"