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On December 11, 1957, Ralph Ketner, Brown Ketner, and Wilson Smith co-founded the Food Town (later Food Lion) grocery store chain in Salisbury, North Carolina. Ketner served as President (later CEO, chairman, and Chairman Emeritus).
Ralph Ketner resigned in 1957 and opened a grocery store with two men who had also worked for Glenn Ketner and had then gone on to work for Winn-Dixie: his brother, Brown, and shared friend, Wilson Smith. Their entrepreneurial adventure had a somewhat rocky beginning, however.
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Oct 31, 2016 · Wilson Smith (Ronnie’s dad), Ralph Ketner and Brown Ketner went on to found Food Town in 1957, and their first store was in the Ketner Center, owned by Glenn Ketner Sr. Eller...
Apr 21, 2011 · Wilson Smith died early Wednesday morning at 93. In 1957 he started Food Lion (then Food Town) with Ralph and Brown Ketner. That one Salisbury store would eventually grow to today’s...
Jun 6, 2016 · Ralph Ketner, the late Brown Ketner and the late Wilson Smith had all worked for Glenn Ketner Sr. before striking out on their own to form Food Town in 1957, which eventually became...
May 2, 2011 · TAGS: Ahold Delhaize. SALISBURY, N.C. — Wilson Smith, a co-founder of the Food Lion chain, based here, died last month at age 93, according to reports. Smith partnered with two brothers,...
Aug 31, 2012 · Brown Ketner died in 1994; Wilson Smith in 2011. Smith and Ralph Ketner became two of their community’s greatest philanthropists, as did many of their original-investor friends. When Catawba College conducted a $28 million fund-raising drive in the 1980s, gifts of Food Lion stock accounted for $15 million.
