Jewel-Osco is a regional supermarket chain in the Chicago metropolitan area, headquartered in Itasca, a western suburb. In 2025, the company had 189 stores across northern, central, and western Illinois; eastern Iowa; and portions of northwest Indiana. Jewel-Osco has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Boise-based Albertsons since 1999. The company originally started as a door-to-door coffee delivery service before it expanded into delivering non-perishable groceries and later into grocery stores, and supermarkets. Prior to its 1984 acquisition by American Stores, Jewel evolved into a large multi-state holding company that operated several supermarket chains and other non-food retail chain stores located from coast to coast and had operated under several different brand names.

In 1899, Frank Vernon Skiff founded Jewel in Chicago as a door-to-door coffee delivery service. In 1902, Skiff partnered with his brother-in-law Frank P. Ross, renaming the venture the Jewel Tea Company. By 1903, they had six routes, then 12 routes in 1904 with expansion into Michigan City, Kankakee, and Kewanee. There were 850 routes by 1915. In the early 1900s, it ran a "coffee train" of 40 cars carrying coffee beans exported from South America.

During WWI, the company faced soaring costs for materials and production. Compounding this, the US government commandeered a key Jewel production facility. As a result, by 1919 the company was experiencing severe financial setbacks. Within a few years, it returned to profitability through the leadership of new company officials: retired Commanders John M. Hancock and Maurice H. Karker, who had both gained extensive logistics experience as US Navy supply officers during the war.

In 1929, the company built a new office, warehouse, and coffee roasting facility in suburban Barrington, Illinois, creating hundreds of local jobs despite the Great Depression. The Barrington location served as the headquarters and main warehouse facility for both the home delivery and food store divisions until the completion of the new warehouse and office complex at Melrose Park in 1953.

In 1949, deliveries were provided on 1876 routes in 43 states to customers mostly in small towns. Customers in cities could visit 154 company-owned grocery stores.

Later, the service expanded to include 350 grocery and 10,000 general merchandise items by 1981 when Jewel sold its "Jewel Home Shopping Service" division to its employees and divest itself from its roots. At the time of the divestiture, the division provided service to customers in mostly small towns located along 1000 routes in 42 states. The division became a 700-member owned cooperative called "J.T.'s General Store" in which route sales persons were independent agents.

In October 1994, a group of the company's managers acquired the assets of "J.T.'s General Store" and "created J.T. Dealers Sales and Service". By 1995, "J.T. Dealer Sales and Service" was providing service to 60,000 customers along 250 routes in 35 states.

The company's expansion continued throughout the mid-20th century. In 1932, Jewel acquired the Chicago unit of the Canadian firm Loblaw Groceterias, Inc., then a chain of 77 self-service stores, as well as four Chicago grocery stores operated by the Middle West Stores Company, and began operating them under the name Jewel Food Stores. In 1934, Jewel Food Stores merged with Jewel Tea Company. In 1937, Jewel Tea Company purchased an eight-story building in Chicago's Central Manufacturing District, which served as Jewel Food Stores' headquarters until 1954.