The Honor Capital and Save-A-Lot Partnership

Franchising and licensing represent a form of business proprietorship in which an individual or group of individuals are given the right to use a business format, brand, and identifying marks to sell a product or provide a service under specified terms and conditions. In the United States, roughly one out of every 12 business is a franchise, and hiring within this business sector has outpaced the national average in recent years. The number of workers employed now exceeds the workforce of many major industries. It’s estimated that franchising provides nearly 18 million jobs and contributes over 2.1 trillion dollars to the economy. Franchising in the grocery industry is a well-tested model for independent grocers serving cities, small towns and rural communities. This panel examines the advantages and challenges of the franchising and licensing models for rural grocers and explore the success and innovative partnership between Honor Capital, a veterans-owned business and Save-A-Lot, a hard discount, limited assortment grocery store format with over 1300 locations nationwide. Honor Capital was founded in 2014 by a group of post-9/11 veterans with a dual mission to promote veteran entrepreneurship and improve access to healthy food in underserved communities. While working for a grocery wholesaler in the mid-1970s, Save-a-Lot founder Bill Moran identified an opportunity for small grocers to compete against emerging superstore and created the limited assortment business model. Today, Save-a-Lot is one of the fastest-growing brands in the retail grocery industry.