Giant Eagle supermarkets have been proudly serving communities for over 90 years. It all started when the three founding families, Goldstein/Shapira, Porter and Chait, founded the first “Eagle Grocery” in 1918. Beginning in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Eagle quickly grew into the “Giant” it is today, with over 400 retail locations throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and
Maryland. 

The Giant Eagle chain–and their new rebranded chain stores, Market District– discovered an opportunity in their prepared foods area to outshine the competition. This opportunity was a “pizza program” designed by Doug Wells the Director of Prepared Foods for the Market District. Once this idea was introduced, corporate chef John Gruver contacted Wood Stone and asked to visit our test kitchen. After one visit to the Wood Stone Test Kitchen, the company left with five new pieces of Wood Stone equipment for the first Market District store alone! As their successful pizza program has expanded, The Market District and Giant Eagle chains have continued buying Wood Stone ovens.

As Wells told Wood Stone’s Phil Eaton, “My feeling about
Wood Stone is if you build it we’ll pretty much buy it.” We think that pretty
much sums up our relationship.

Check out more about Giant Eagle here, and more about Wood Stone ovens here! (more…)