That idea has continued all the way from early 20th-century signs to electronic systems that individually identify shopped in the store in order to advertise to them personally. “The whole idea of in-store merchandising became important with Piggly Wiggly,” Stanton says. The Queen was reportedly “bemused by the grocery cart’s little collapsible seat,” saying “it is particularly nice to be able to bring your children here.”Ĭhildren in supermarkets drastically changed the game of branding, with designers able to place food at kids’ eye levels, making it easy for them to woo their parents into various purchases.
It was such a marvel that in 1957, during a visit with President Eisenhower, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip visited a Maryland grocery store for 15 minutes to see what it was all about. Throughout the ‘50s, the supermarket proved itself an American phenomenon, Stanton says.
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After the war, the popularity of refrigerators and automobiles for nearly every household kept feeding the model, so much so that free parking became a necessity at every supermarket. For supermarkets, losing one or two people didn’t put the chains out of business. Supermarket success continued to prove fruitful during World War II when thousands of small grocery stores had to close as their employees went off to war. Some contention still surrounds whether Kullen or Saunders founded the first supermarket, but the opening dates suggest Piggly Wiggly was, in fact, the original. Other supermarkets popped up as well, with King Kullen opening in 1930 in Queens, New York, and Safeway and Kroeger grocers adapting to the new normal. Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter
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