[1] Alex Lee owns the Lowes Foods supermarket chain as well as Merchants Distributors, Inc.,[2] which supplies more than 600 stores located in nine states, mostly in the Southeast.

In 1931, Moses George, a Shelby, North Carolina grocer, bought Merchants Produce for $17,000 and began running it with his sons Alex and G.L.

Norman James was vice president; after his death, the George brothers bought his share of the company and made IFH a subsidiary of MDI.

This arrangement created controversy because the North Carolina Supreme Court had not yet ruled on whether such economic incentives to keep businesses were constitutional.

[8][9] Two years later, the distribution center was complete, though neighbors complained about the noise, and a few people claimed construction damaged their nearby homes.