Publix Super Markets, Inc.

What does Publix Super Markets own?
Publix owns and operates more than 1,400 supermarkets under the Publix banner, plus Publix Liquors stores, the Presto! ATM network, and private-label product lines including Publix, Publix Premium, GreenWise, and Aprons. It also owns distribution centers, dairy and bakery plants, and a real estate portfolio of shopping centers. The company does not own other grocery banners.

Is Publix publicly traded?
No. Publix is a private, employee-owned company. Its stock is sold only to eligible associates, board members, and certain retirees, and its price is set quarterly by an independent appraisal rather than a public market. The stock was valued at $19.65 per share as of March 1, 2026.

Who founded Publix?
George W. Jenkins founded Publix in Winter Haven, Florida on September 6, 1930, after leaving a Piggly Wiggly manager job following a dispute with the chain's owner. He took the Publix name from a defunct Paramount-affiliated theater chain. Jenkins ran the company until 1990 and died in 1996.

Where is Publix headquartered?
Publix is headquartered in Lakeland, Florida, where it moved in the 1950s after acquiring the Lakeland Grocery Company in 1945. The corporate campus anchors the company's supply chain network in the center of its largest market.

How many brands does Publix own?
Publix operates a compact portfolio: the flagship Publix banner and store brand, the GreenWise organic product line, the Publix Aprons culinary brand, Publix Premium, and department-level brands such as Publix Pharmacy, Publix Liquors, Publix Bakery, and Publix Deli. The GreenWise Market store banner is being phased out and converted to conventional Publix stores.

Who owns Publix Super Markets?
Publix is owned by its employees and the founding Jenkins family. The company is the largest employee-owned business in the United States, with more than 260,000 associates participating in stock ownership through an ESOP, 401(k) matching, and annual profit-sharing grants. The Jenkins family holds a minority stake of roughly 20 percent.

What is Publix's revenue?
Publix reported sales of $62.7 billion for fiscal year 2025, ended December 27, 2025, a 5 percent increase over FY2024. Net earnings were $4.7 billion. Comparable store sales increased 3.5 percent during the year.

George Willis Jenkins was born in Georgia in 1907 and moved to Florida during the land boom of the 1920s. He worked at a Piggly Wiggly store in Winter Haven, rising from clerk to manager. After a dispute with the chain's absentee owner in 1930, Jenkins quit and opened a competing grocery store next door. The first Publix Food Store opened on September 6, 1930 in Winter Haven, Florida, in the middle of the Great Depression.

Jenkins took the Publix name from a defunct chain of movie theaters, Publix Theatres, which had been part of Paramount Pictures. He liked the name and acquired the rights to use it for groceries. A second store opened in 1935, and in 1940 Jenkins closed both locations to open a larger purpose-built supermarket on the same Winter Haven site. That store, which opened on November 8, 1940, is often described as Florida's first modern supermarket and featured air conditioning, electric-eye automatic doors, fluorescent lighting, and piped-in music, all novelties at the time.

The first major growth step came in 1945, when Publix acquired the Lakeland Grocery Company and its chain of All American Food Center stores, adding 19 locations in a single transaction. The company headquarters moved from Winter Haven to Lakeland, which remains the corporate home today. Through the 1950s and 1960s, Publix expanded across the Florida peninsula, built its own distribution and dairy facilities, and established the employee stock ownership culture that still defines it. George Jenkins began giving stock to managers and later to all employees, reasoning that workers who owned the business would run it better.

Publix stayed a Florida-only company for more than 60 years. The first store outside the state opened in Savannah, Georgia in 1991, followed by South Carolina in 1995, Alabama in 1996, Tennessee in 2002, North Carolina in 2014, Virginia in 2017, and Kentucky in 2024, when the first Louisville-area stores opened. That measured, contiguous expansion strategy has been a constant: Publix builds distribution infrastructure first, then layers stores on top of it.

Several side ventures came and went along the way. Publix operated PIX convenience stores and gas stations briefly in the early 2000s before exiting the format. It launched Publix Sabor stores aimed at Hispanic shoppers in 2005 and later folded the concept back into standard stores. The company bought a majority stake in the Crispers restaurant chain in 2007 and sold it four years later. In 2007 it also introduced Publix GreenWise Market, a natural and organic store concept, which was relaunched in 2018 and then phased out as a separate banner starting in 2023, with elements such as the Publix Pours in-store bar carried into the company's 55.3 new-store prototype.

Leadership has stayed within the company and the founding family. George Jenkins ran the company until 1990 and died in 1996. His nephew, Howard Jenkins, and later non-family executives Mark Hollis and Ed Crenshaw led the company before Todd Jones, who started as a bagger in 1980, became CEO in 2016. Kevin Murphy, another longtime company veteran who began as a front-service clerk, succeeded Jones as CEO on January 1, 2024, with Jones moving to chairman.

Fiscal 2025 closed with sales of $62.7 billion, up 5 percent from $59.7 billion in 2024, and net earnings of $4.7 billion. The company opened 52 stores, closed 10, and remodeled 89 during the year. As it approaches its 100th anniversary in 2030, Publix continues to push north, with its Kentucky buildout and additional Charlotte-area development marking its newest territory.

Publix publishes a sustainability and corporate social responsibility program covering food waste reduction, packaging, seafood sourcing, and community giving. The company is not a Certified B Corporation and does not hold Leaping Bunny or equivalent certifications, which are not typical for a grocery retailer rather than a product brand.

On food waste, Publix donates surplus perishable food through its Good Together program and is a long-standing partner of Feeding America member food banks. The company says it diverted hundreds of millions of pounds of food from landfills through donation, animal feed, and composting programs over the life of the program. Publix also operates recycling programs for plastic bags, foam, and paper at store level.

In sustainable sourcing, Publix has stated commitments around seafood, cage-free eggs, and pork gestation-crate elimination, though progress reporting relies on first-party disclosure rather than independent certification. The company's GreenWise product line carries USDA Organic certification on qualifying items, verified through the USDA National Organic Program rather than through Publix itself.

Community giving is unusually large relative to peers. Publix has been the number-one corporate partner of the March of Dimes for years and was United Way's top corporate partner for the 16th consecutive year in 2025. These are funded partly through register campaigns and partly through direct corporate giving.

Publix has appeared on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For list for 29 consecutive years, the longest streak in the grocery industry. It has also ranked on Forbes' list of America's largest private companies, typically within the top 15, and routinely places at or near the top of the American Customer Satisfaction Index for supermarkets, finishing first in the supermarket category in multiple recent years including 2025.

The company has been recognized by regional press for disaster response, particularly its hurricane operations in Florida, and its associate-development programs draw consistent coverage in grocery trade publications such as Supermarket News and Progressive Grocer.

Publix's pharmacy business drew scrutiny over its role in the opioid supply chain. A 2024 Tampa Bay Times analysis of Drug Enforcement Administration data found that Publix had become the second-largest dispenser of opioids in Florida by 2019 even as competitors such as CVS and Walgreens restricted distribution. Local governments including Cobb County, Georgia and more than 20 Florida communities sued the company over opioid dispensing. A federal whistleblower suit filed under the False Claims Act was dismissed with prejudice in August 2025 by Judge Tom Barber of the Middle District of Florida, who ruled the relator had not adequately alleged a violation. Publix has denied wrongdoing and noted it was not among the companies sued by the state of Florida.

In 2021 the family of Gerardo Gutierrez, a Miami Beach Publix deli worker who died of COVID-19 complications in April 2020, sued the company, arguing that a since-reversed policy prohibiting employees from wearing masks in the pandemic's early weeks contributed to his death. The parties later reached a confidential resolution. The case brought sustained attention to grocery-worker safety rules during COVID-19.

Publix has also faced periodic criticism over its civic and charitable choices, including backlash in 2022 and 2023 when it declined to sponsor LGBTQ Pride events in some markets after years of participation, prompting protests in South Florida. In 2024 the nationwide Boar's Head deli-meat listeria recall affected products sold at Publix delis, though the recall originated with the manufacturer rather than Publix operations.