National brands like Campbell’s soup and Walker Baker & Co. After walking through a swinging door, they followed a pathway that led them through four aisles stacked high with more than 1000 products-everything from canned vegetables to cornflakes, bags of flour to jars of preserves. Upon entering the store, shoppers found themselves standing before a brightly lit showroom floor. With its "self-service" model, the Piggly Wiggly on Jefferson Avenue would do away with the clerks and let customers do something they’d never done before: select the products themselves. Up until that point, retail stores all operated according to the same model: Customers placed their order with a clerk, who would then gather and bag all their items and total up the cost. For weeks, they’d seen billboards and read newspaper ads about this grocery store with the funny name that promised an entirely new shopping experience-one that would, according to its owner, forever change the retail grocery business. The store-located on a busy commercial stretch just three blocks east of the river-was the perfect excuse for some afternoon shopping, and maybe a stroll along the waterfront.īut what drew so many people that day wasn’t the location or the festivities. Smartly dressed employees handed out flowers to the ladies and balloons to children. A festive atmosphere greeted them, complete with a beauty contest and a brass band. On September 6, 1916, hundreds of curious shoppers came out for the opening of a new grocery store at 79 Jefferson Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee. But 100 years ago, it was downright revolutionary. That’s Piggly Wiggly 101.Walking the aisles of your local supermarket may feel like a pretty mundane task. Piggly Wiggly claims to be the first grocery store to allow folks to shop for themselves, saving the customers’ time and the business’s money. In the days of yesteryear, people used to give their orders to grocery clerks who would collect the items from the shelves and package it all up. Where did Piggly Wiggly start?Īs the Piggly Wiggly website notes, “Piggly Wiggly, America’s first true self-service grocery store, was founded in Memphis, Tennessee in 1916 by Clarence Saunders.” When they say “true self-service grocery store,” they mean a store in which shoppers could actually select their own groceries. They have stores in 18 states, specifically Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. While it’s historically been associated with the South, Piggly Wiggly stores are now all over the place. Founded in 1918 as a supplier to independent grocery stores, C&S now services customers of all sizes, supplying more than 7,500 independent supermarkets, chain stores, military bases and institutions with over 100,000 different products.” Where are Piggly Wiggly stores? According to their website, “C&S Wholesale Grocers, LLC is an industry leader in supply chain solutions and wholesale grocery supply in the United States. Piggly Wiggly is owned by a company called C & S Wholesale Grocers. has an impressive portfolio of stores to its name including Baker’s, Food4Less, Mariano’s, King Soopers, and Ralph’s, Piggly Wiggly is not among them. It’s easy to understand why you might think this. The fine folks at Piggly Wiggly have realized that their mascot is rather cute and you can purchase a slew of merchandise featuring this pink fella. Piggly Wiggly, a name that rhymes and has the words “pig” and “wiggle” in it, is a supermarket chain with the claim to fame that it’s “America’s first true self-service grocery store.” Its mascot is, befittingly, a pig wearing a little paper hat like an old-timey grocer would wear. But of all the odd sounding grocery store names, the crown jewel has to be Piggly Wiggly. Two of my favorites are Giant Eagle, a chain in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and the multistate chain Food Lion, because both are particularly ferocious-sounding names for a place where you pick up 1% milk and frozen chicken nuggets. Still, at least in name, they retain their unique provincial charm.Īnd it’s a good thing they do, because some of their names are delightful. But increasingly, conglomerates buy up these regional grocery stores so there are fewer companies owning grocery stores than ever before. For my girlfriend, the answer is Jewel, Sunset, and Dominick’s, which means she grew up in the Chicagoland area. For me, the answer is Market Basket, Shaw’s, and Stop & Shop, which means that I grew up in New England. One easy way to tell where someone grew up is to ask them what grocery stores they went to as a kid.
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