Loblaw Companies Limited is a Canadian retailer encompassing corporate and franchise supermarkets operating under 22 regional and market-segment banners (including Loblaws), as well as pharmacies, banking and apparel. Loblaw operates a private label program that includes grocery and household items, clothing, baby products, pharmaceuticals, cellular phones, general merchandise and financial services. Loblaw is the largest Canadian food retailer, and its brands include President's Choice, No Name and Joe Fresh. It is controlled by George Weston Limited, a holding company controlled by the Weston family; Galen Weston Jr. is chairman and CEO of both companies. Most of Loblaw's 136,000 full-time and part-time employees are members of the United Food and Commercial Workers, with the exception of workers at The Real Canadian Wholesale Club in Alberta, who are members of the Christian Labour Association of Canada. Loblaw's regional food distribution divisions include Westfair Foods Ltd. in Western Canada and Northern Ontario, National Grocers Co. Ltd. in Ontario, Provigo Inc. in Quebec, and Atlantic Wholesalers Ltd. in Atlantic Canada. History "We Sell for Less" In 1919, Toronto grocers Theodore Pringle Loblaw and J. Milton Cork opened the first Loblaw Groceterias store modelled on a new and radically different retail concept, namely "self serve". The traditional grocery store provided a high level of personal service but was a labour-intensive operation. Customers typically had to wait while a clerk fetched items from behind a counter. Other goods, such as sugar and flour, had to be individually weighed and the order then tallied by hand and added to the customer’s account. Home delivery, by wagon, was usually included free of charge. Loblaw and Cork, friends from the days when both worked as young clerks in the Cork family grocery store, believed they could cut costs by introducing self service combined with cash and carry. While cash stores were not new, the idea of allowing customers to select their own merchandise was a new concept. The pair had heard of the Piggly Wiggly "self serving store" in the United States and travelled to Memphis, Tennessee, to see it in operation first hand. With customers allowed to browse freely, pick up their own goods and then pay cash at a central checkout counter, with no credit or home delivery, operating costs were reduced. The two came away convinced that a similar style of operation could work in Canada. But Loblaw was met with scepticism: In the early days