The story goes like this, though the details have gone fuzzy with time:

1915 to 1920 –Oscar and Esther Levy opened up one, possibly two small corner food stores in Savannah, GA. The Levys had five daughters and a son, who helped out their parents as needed, and ran their own stores as they grew older.

1940, Annie Levy, later Annie Melaver, and her husband Isidor Melaver, opened a small grocery store on the corner of Mercer and Hall Streets in Savannah, GA.

1948 – Norton Melaver, Annie and Isidor's son, joined the business, which during the subsequent four decades became M&M Supermarkets. A regional chain, M&M employed about 750 people in southeast Georgia. As a natural complement to selling groceries, the company also developed neighborhood retail centers and distribution warehouses. Norton’s sister Millie Melaver, and his wife Betty Stein Melaver, assisted with specific aspects of the overall management of the business.

1985 – The business was sold to Kroger and the newly founded Melaver, Inc., turned its attention to real estate holdings.

1992 – Martin Melaver, son of Norton and Betty, assumed active management of Melaver Inc.’s real estate business.

Present – The products may be different, but at its core, the business is run the same way as before. In the old days, if a neighbor was sick and couldn’t get out, Annie closed the corner store and delivered whatever groceries were needed. Norton, just a boy then, delivered groceries balanced on the handlebars of his bike. They were hard times. Customers had to use credit to buy necessities. As the prominent daughter of a longshoreman told us recently, "Sometimes we had enough to put food on the table and sometimes we didn’t. Thank God there was always Annie."

Nights after work, family members helped out in the community: socializing at the local Jewish center, praying at the synagogue, raising money for local needs and participating in a community loan program through the workman’s circle credit union – we were neighbors helping neighbors. We were a community serving a community.

Over the years, business practices improved as the company employed ever more sophisticated practices. Over time, we adopted innovative, everyday-low-pricing strategies that we still see evolving today. We used nascent technology to develop innovative approaches to warehousing and just-in-time inventory. We were ahead of our time.

We were among the first in the area to hire minorities in leadership positions as store managers. We supported school system integration and there were picket lines as a result. Melaver companies refused to play the game so many national chains played – raising prices in the urban areas because poverty made for a captive customer base.

Experience has taught us to value education, formal and informal, deeply. We’ve set aside time and resources to educate ourselves, our kids, our grandchildren. We’ve grown even more concerned with our community. Family members are involved in, or have become leaders of, more than 40 local, regional, and national non-profit organizations. 8% of proceeds earned through the sale of the grocery chain were provided to employees of the company. The sale also created a foundation that, to this day, contributes to many programs and charities.

In short, the Melaver business has been, and continues to be, focused on service to the community and the implied values of that commitment.

Simply put, as a company we want to make a difference in all that we undertake.

Melaver aims to envelop the community in a fabric of innovative, sustaining, inspiring practices.

We have a legacy, which we look to pass on to our colleagues, vendors, and clients: To Do Right. Learn. Serve. Profit.