White Rose Foods , Inc. history

Net profits came to $344,033 in 1925.

Founded in 1944, Pioneer, at the time of its purchase, was serving 51 Pioneer stores, 50 of them in New York City and one in Westchester County, New York.

In fiscal 1960 (the year ended February 27, 1960), the company passed $1 million in earnings for the first time, although most of the gain came from Leggett's tax-loss carryover.

But excess supplies of frozen vegetables forced Seeman to dump its products, sometimes below cost, thereby sustaining a deficit for fiscal 1962, despite a rise in sales to $135 million.

By 1973 Met Food was the largest wholesale grocer in the New York metropolitan area.

It added fresh meat to its line by acquiring Schnoll Foods in 1984.

By 1988 it was the largest wholesale distributor of fresh meat in the metropolitan area.

In 1989 Arthur M. Goldberg, a former trial lawyer and an active investor, made a successful tender offer for the company's outstanding shares that cost him and his backers about $166 million.

Di Giorgio sold White Rose's meat division in 1991.

In July 1992 the Farmingdale local agreed to end the strike in return for its members sharing in a $1.5 million settlement and being placed on preferential hiring lists for jobs that would pay them less money than previously.

In 1994 White Rose made the first major redesign to its product label in several decades in connection with an advertising campaign that was carried on coupons, newsprint, more than 250 billboards, and 180 bus routes throughout the New York metropolitan area.