The Kroger Co., or simply Kroger, is an American retailing company founded by Bernard Kroger in 1883 in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is the United States's largest supermarket chain by revenue ($115.34 billion for fiscal year 2016), the second-largest general retailer (behind Walmart) and the seventeenth largest company in the United States. Kroger is also the third-largest retailer in the world and the third largest private employer in the United States. Kroger is ranked #17 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.As of December 2018, Kroger operates, either directly or through its subsidiaries, 2,765 supermarkets and multi-department stores. Kroger's headquarters are in downtown Cincinnati. It maintains markets in 35 states and the District of Columbia, with store formats that include hypermarkets, supermarkets, superstores, department stores, and 263 jewelry stores (782 convenience stores were sold to EG Group in 2018). Kroger-branded grocery stores are located in the Midwestern and Southern United States. Kroger operates 38 food processing or manufacturing facilities, 1,532 supermarket fuel centers, 2,270 pharmacies and 232 The Little Clinic in-store medical clinics.Kroger's employees are mostly represented by collective bargaining agreements and many are represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union.