A former employee of a grocery warehouse brought an equal pay action claiming that her compensation as a head grocery buyer at the company’s St. Cloud facility was less than the head grocery buyer for the Omaha, Fargo, and Minot distribution systems. The Court focused on the fact that the word “establishment” is used in the statute and that these were different establishments. The Court recognized that there were circumstances under which separate physical locations may be treated as one “establishment” for purposes of the Equal Pay Act. However, in this case, the only arguments the plaintiff made suggesting the separate physical locations should be treated as one establishment was that they shared the same hierarchical management structure and human resources department. The Court determined that in this case the degree of control from central headquarters would not dictate that the separate locations be treated as one establishment. Renstrom v. Nash-Finch Company (D.C. Minn. 2011)