Kmart Corporation. Sears Holdings, the parent company of Kmart, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. S. S. Kresge, the founder of the company that would become Kmart, met variety-store pioneer Frank Winfield Woolworth while working as a traveling salesman and selling to all 19 of Woolworth's stores at the time. In 1897 Kresge invested $6,700 saved from his job into a five-and-dime store in Memphis, Tennessee. He jointly owned the first store with his former tinware customer, John McCrory. Kresge and McCrory added a second store in downtown Detroit the following year. These were the first S.S. Kresge stores.
Red and White Brand continued beyond the 60’s and 70’s and in 2014 store brands represent 17% of all retail grocery sales in the United States. There are thousands of Red & White products serving as the primary store brand in independent grocery stores across the United States, but the store brand market as a whole has greatly matured. Smith Michael (S.M.) Flickinger started Red & White Corporation, the nation’s first wholesale and retail business with fully integrated distribution. In 1903, Smith Michael (S.M.) Flickinger left his job as a wholesale grocery clerk in Buffalo, NY to open Flickinger Grocery Store with his brother