in 1968, supermarkets general left the wakefern cooperative, renaming its shoprite stores "pathmark". although supermarkets general had other holdings, including the recently acquired genung's, howland's, goerke's and steinbach department store chains (the first three eventually were merged into steinbach in the 1970s) and rickel supermart home centers, pathmark was its major operation. these pathmarks included not only supermarkets (33 of which had a drug department with a pharmacy) but 11 freestanding drugstores and 11 gasoline stations.