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Bruno Industrial history
Bruno Industrial company history timeline
Luigia Crespi, Italian immigrants who had lived in Venezuela for eight years, establish the first rendering operation in Caracas, setting up equipment to turn animal by-products into useful products for industry.1967 Mini Bruno Sucesores, C.A. is incorporated in the city of Caracas.
In 1968 the company opened its first Big B Discount Drug Store, a chain that would grow steadily over the next dozen years.
Our company was founded by Bruno Wessel in the 1970’s in New York State.
Bruno's Food Stores had also been expanding, reaching a total of 29 stores throughout Alabama by 1970.
Bruno started in the tire industry in 1972 selling tire studs and studding equipment door to door primarily in the northeast.
In 1972 Bruno's launched its Food World chain.
In 1977, Joe Dillard, IEEE President, called me one evening.
In 1978, as the businesses along Roosevelt Road declined, Bruno’s Little Italy moved to 1309 Old Forge Road in west Little Rock.
Bruno opened a Canadian branch in London Ontario in 1978.
In 1978, he became Chairman of the Finance Committee of the IEEE Technical Activities Board.
Soon, he started organizing the Washington office and restructuring personnel at IEEE. In 1979, Weinschel put together a committee, which eventually became the US Competitiveness Committee.
First, Bruno's divested its Big B Discount Drug Stores in 1980 by offering all stock in the subsidiary to the public.
In 1983 the company remodeled its Bruno's Food Stores and renamed the chain Bruno's Food and Pharmacy.
The same year Bruno's opened its first Bruno's Finer Foods, and in 1985 it launched its Food Fair chain.
In 1985 the company bought the Birmingham, Alabama, chain Megamarket.
Bruno’s Little Italy continued in business at that location with his wife, Ernestine Bruno, at the helm, until May 1987, when increasing high overhead and the real estate crunch of the 80s forced them to close.
In September 1987 Angelo Bruno, cofounder and then chair, signed a joint venture agreement with Kmart.
Bruno's moved into Tennessee in 1987 with the purchase of the Steven's Supermarket chain in Nashville.
The company also bought seven BiLo supermarkets in 1988, which moved the company into Georgia.
Also in 1988, Bruno's acquired PWS Holding Corp., which held Piggly Wiggly Southern, Inc.
Combined with the loss of the company's leadership in the 1991 plane crash, the lowered profits fed doubts about the company's future on Wall Street.
In June 1992 Bruno's announced an end to its joint venture with Kmart.
In August 1992 Bruno's, Inc. bought 3.6 million shares of common stock from the estates of Angelo and Lee Bruno.
1992 Mini Bruno Sucesores, C.A. acquires its first vehicles for raw material collection and end product distribution.
In 1992 alone Wal-Mart opened three Supercenters in Birmingham and Publix elbowed into Bruno's territory in Atlanta.
Profits for Bruno's, which had more than quadrupled in the last decade, fell 37 percent in 1992.
The offices were officially closed in 1992, but the distribution center in Vidalia remained.
Rumors of a buyout were circulating in 1994, and the following year Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) approached Bruno's with an offer to acquire the company for $12.50 a share.
The Bruno family held 24 percent of the company in 1995, and Ronald Bruno still ran the company as chief executive officer.
BRUNO WEINSCHEL: An Interview Conducted by William Aspray, IEEE History Center, 7 March 1996
In 1996 the company cut costs by closing its distribution center in Georgia and closing or selling 47 underperforming stores.
Losses for 1997 came in around $50 million, and debt had skyrocketed to approximately $1 billion.
Early in 1998 Bruno's filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
In 1999 after Bruno’s retirement, the company continued to move forward under his son Garry.
2000 Mini Bruno North America, Inc ., subsidiary of Mini Bruno Sucesores in the United States is established.
2001 The Santa Cruz Plant, located in the Santa Cruz de Aragua Industrial Region, Aragua State, and the Yaritagua Collection Center, located in Yaritagua, Yaracuy State, are inaugurated.
In October 2011, Bruno’s Little Italy once again closed its doors due to a failing economy and Little Rock’s shift further west, however it was still a thriving business at its closure.
Bruno Wessel, 81, of Sarasota Florida formally of White Plains, NY, died August 2, 2013.
Executive Chef Vince Bruno and his brother Gio Bruno, along with returning employees from previous locations that included now-retired Pasta Chef Harold Woodbury, reopened Bruno’s Little Italy in October 2013, in a beautifully remodeled facility at 310 Main Street in downtown Little Rock.
"How a Rock Remade the Soviet North: Nepheline in the Khibiny Mountains," in Nicholas Breyfogle, ed., Eurasian Environments: Nature and Ecology in Imperial Russian and Soviet History (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018). 147-164.
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