Marsh Supermarkets

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Marsh Supermarkets began in Muncie, Indiana, in 1931, when Ermal Marsh opened the grocery business that would become a familiar name across Indiana and western Ohio. The wider Marsh family’s grocery roots reached back to North Salem in 1922, but the Marsh Supermarkets lineage traces its own start to Muncie. It incorporated as Marsh Foodliners in 1952 before becoming Marsh Supermarkets.

The chain helped make grocery retail feel futuristic: a Marsh store in Troy, Ohio, used the world’s first bar-code scanner in 1974. Corporate headquarters operated in Yorktown from 1952 until 1991, when Marsh moved into its four-story headquarters in Fishers, Indiana. For decades, the big blue-and-red sign meant deli counters, bakery cases, pharmacy runs, and one more thing added to the cart.

Marsh acquired O’Malia Food Markets and Carter’s Supermarkets in 2001, then Mr. D’s Fresh Food Markets in 2003; O’Malia remained a banner while the others were rebranded as Marsh. Sun Capital Partners acquired the company in 2006. After store closures and a May 2017 Chapter 11 filing, Marsh operations ended on July 8, 2017. The grocery cart finally rolled into the void.

Our Marsh Supermarkets collection celebrates the neighborhood grocer that scanned tomorrow before much of the world had figured out the beep.