Growing Companies

Publix, a privately held company operating stores in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee, was founded by George W. Jenkins in 1930 in Winter Haven, Florida. It has grown into a Fortune 500 company with more than 1,000 stores, 141,000 employees and 2008 retail sales of $23.9 billion, making it the largest employee-owned supermarket and among the 10 largest-volume supermarkets in the United States.