Sullivan's Foods

General information

Sullivan's Foods is a family owned and operated grocery retail business that was started in 1967 by John & June Sullivan. John Sullivan married June in 1959 and then served in the United States Army. While serving in the army he took a part-time job as a meat cutter. After his military service, John and June returned for a short time to John's hometown, Stockton, Illinois where he became a full-time meat cutter. They then moved to Platteville, Wisconsin, where John worked for another grocery store. During his seven years there he learned more of the meat cutting trade and other valuable tools for success. Most significant was how important it is to be fair to your employees, vendors and customers. In September of 1967 John and June moved to Savanna, Illinois where they decided to purchase their own grocery store. For a short time in the beginning he had a partner and eventually ended up buying his share out and then built a new store - tearing down the older structure to make room for a larger parking lot. After a couple years of trial and error the Savanna location was a success so in 1973 they expanded their business with an additional store located in John's hometown, Stockton, Illinois. Keeping up with the ever growing market, John and June decided to venture out in 1978 and purchased two more locations in Prophetstown, Illinois (now closed) and Morrison, Illinois. In 1980 they increased their stores again with the purchase of two more locations in Galena, Illinois (now closed) and Princeton, Illinois. In 1998 Sullivan's selected Central Grocers as our leading warehouse. We believe that the affiliation with this warehouse gives us the competitive advantage, as it is a progressive company that allows us to purchase a broad base of foods at low prices that we pass on to the consumers. Since then we have continued to grow adding more stores which now totals fourteen grocery stores in the northern and central part of Illinois. In addition to building his successful grocery chain, John and June were also raising six children Kathryn, Scott, Bryan, Susan, Mike and Julie. All of whom followed in Dad and Moms' footsteps and are a part of the company. Each of them started off either as a cashier, meat cutter or stocker and now helps run the company. Today, John is still the CEO, Scott Sullivan is the President, Kathy Christensen is the Vice President of Human Resources, Bryan Sullivan is the Vice President of Advertising, Susie Sullivan-Dauphin is the Property Manager, Mike Sullivan is Vice President of I.T. and Julie Sullivan-Mensendike is General Merchandise Manager as well as being a teacher.

Throughout the years Sullivan's has made much progress and has continued to grow. Throughout its proximity, the beliefs and philosophy of Sullivan's remains the same. We contribute our success and growth to two ingredients: 1) Clean, modern and pleasant supermarkets filled with quality merchandise at competitively low prices and 2) Genuinely warm, friendly and courteous service!

We take pride in our facilities and in the fine people who make our supermarkets what they are today.