WinCo Foods
About WinCo Foods, Inc. is a privately held, majority employee-owned American supermarket chain headquartered at 650 N Armstrong Place, Boise, Idaho 83704. WinCo is the second-largest employee-owned company in the United States, behind only Publix Super Markets, according to the National Center for Employee Ownership — with 22,647 employees participating in an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) established in 1985. The company traces its origins to 1967 when Ralph Ward and Bud Williams founded a discount warehouse grocery store in Boise under the name Waremart, operating on a no-frills, bulk-buying model designed to undercut traditional supermarket prices. The company operated as Waremart Food Centers and later licensed the Cub Foods banner before rebranding fully to WinCo Foods in 1999 —