largely been turned around by the time of the sale. The company retained its 50 stores in Buffalo, New York, which were profitable operations. In 1933, company co-founder Theodore Pringle Loblaw died suddenly of complications from minor surgery. Eulogized as "the Merchant Prince" by the press, Loblaw was remembered not only for his accomplishments in business but also his religious conviction and personal philanthropy that benefited local charities such as the Kiwanis Boys Clubs of Toronto and the Stevenson Memorial Hospital of his hometown of Alliston, Ontario. After Loblaw's death, co-founder John Milton Cork took charge of the company. During the early 1930s, Loblaw Groceterias began converting many of its outlets to "Market Stores" that featured full-service meat and produce departments for the first time. Previously excluded because of the chain's 'self serve' format and the need to cut meats and weigh produce, the new departments proved popular with customers. By 1936, over half of all Ontario locations had been converted to the new format that expanded sales "without a corresponding increase in store overhead." The company also began updating the appearance of its stores to the new, modern, streamlined look. In terms of branding, while the chain often promoted itself as "Loblaw's" in newspaper ads, it wasn’t until 1939 that the first "Loblaws" signs went up on store facades - replacing the Loblaw Groceterias Co. Limited signage. In addition to the new meat and produce departments, frozen food sections were also featured - a first in Canada. Loblaw also began introducing other modern amenities such as "electronic eye" automatic doors and mechanical ventilation systems for the comfort of shoppers. Post-war expansion Store construction, halted during World War II, resumed in the late 1940s as Loblaw undertook a program of "expansion and modernization." Parking lots, a new phenomenon for the chain, became an important design component of the company's "supermarkets" in the post-war era. In particular, Loblaw promoted its new "rear entrance and exit stores," with checkout counters at the back that allowed shoppers, increasingly motorized and suburban, direct access to their cars. Other modernizations included "healthfully-cool refrigerated" air conditioning, introduced by Loblaw in 1949 - the first Canadian grocery chain to do so. In spite of such innovations, the chain still hearkened back to its retail roots with references to the "self-serve" nature of its fruit, vegetable and meat departments. Garfield Weston In 1947, a major shift in corporate