Piggly-wiggly

Piggly Wiggly is a Supermarket chain in the Southeast ern and Midwest ern states of the United States .

HISTORY

in 2006]]
Piggy Wiggy was the first true self-service grocery store. It was founded on 6 September 1916 at 79 Jefferson Street in Memphis, Tennessee by Clarence Saunders .

In grocery stores of that time, shoppers presented their orders to clerks who gathered the goods from the store shelves. Instead customers entered the revolutionary Piggly Wiggly store through Turnstile s and walked through four aisles to view the store’s 605 items sold in packages and organized into departments. They selected their goods as they continued through the maze to a cashier. Instantly, Packaging and Brand recognition became important to companies and consumers. Without self-service, modern branded packaged goods would not exist.

Piggly Wiggly was the first store to:

provide checkout stands.

price mark every item in the store.

feature a full line of nationally advertised brands.

use refrigerated cases to keep produce fresher longer.

put employees in uniforms for cleaner, more sanitary food handling.

design and use patented fixtures and equipment throughout the store.

franchise independent grocers to operate under the self-service method of food merchandising.

The concept of the "Self-Serving Store" was patented by Saunders in 1917.

Piggly Wiggly Corporation, secured the self-service format and issued franchises to hundreds of grocery retailers for the operation of Piggly Wiggly stores. The success of Piggly Wiggly was phenomenal. At its peak, the company was operating 2,660 stores and posting sales of $180 million a year. Other independent and chain grocery stores changed to self-service through the 1930s.

The original Piggly Wiggly Corporation became owner of all Piggly Wiggly properties: the name, the patents, etc., and Saunders began issuing stock in the Corporation. This stock was successfully traded on the New York Stock Exchange for some time, but Saunders lost control in a famous Wall Street bear raid, and his company was soon carved up and sold off. Saunders lost control of Piggly Wiggly and had no further association with the company.

The smaller Piggly Wiggly Corporation continued to prosper as franchiser for the hundreds of independently owned grocery stores franchised to operate under the Piggly Wiggly name and over the next several decades, functioned successfully under various owners.

PRESENT COMPANY

There are presently over 600 independently owned and operated stores in 16 states. The company headquarters is in Flower Mound, Texas .
Some of the stores have formed Retailers' Cooperatives to manage distribution, while using the Piggly Wiggly name. See e.g. the Piggly Wiggly Alabama Distributing Company {Link without Title}

COMPETITORS

The modern Aldi store is very similar to the original Piggly Wiggly concept in many ways.

NAME

Saunders' reason for choosing the intriguing name Piggly Wiggly remains a mystery; he was curiously reluctant to explain its origin. One story is that he saw from a train window several little pigs struggling to get under a fence, and the rhyming name occurred to him then. Someone once asked him why he had chosen such an unusual name for his organization, and Saunders' reply was, "So people will ask that very question." He wanted and found a name that would be talked about and remembered. According to one employee handbook, the name is derived from the children's rhyme "This Little Piggy Went to Market."

The company motto is "Piggly-Wiggly All Over the World".

Betty MacDonald wrote a series of children's books featuring a character Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle .

MOVIES

The Piggly Wiggly store appears in the movies '' Driving Miss Daisy '', '' Space Jam '', '' Win A Date With Tad Hamilton! '', and '' Mississippi Masala ''. Decoy Piggly Wiggly trucks appear in '' Close Encounters Of The Third Kind ''. In '' O Brother, Where Art Thou? '', one of the characters admits to robbing a Piggly Wiggly. It is often mentioned in the TV series, '' That 70's Show ''.

SONG

There is a Song about it that goes " Piggly Wiggly what does it mean? Piggly Wiggly I've never seen! Is it a piggy or is it a worm? I'd never touch it might make me squirm! If I shall see one I'll tell you more. Grandmother says it's a grocery store!"

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The most famous song concerning Piggly Wiggly was recorded by Lucille Bogan 1n 1933. As early as 1946, still during her lifetime, writer Ernest Borneman had grouped Lucille together with Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith as the best three blues singers. She was born Lucille Anderson at Amory, Monroe County, Mississippi on 1 April 1897. On 17 July 1933 she recorded GROCERIES ON THE SHELF featuring the outstanding pianist Walter Roland, and marks the highest point of her recording career. The lyrics are as follows:

GROCERIES ON THE SHELF

My name is Piggly Wiggly, and I swear you can help yourself,

My name is Piggly Wiggly, and I swear you can help yourself,

And you've got to have your greenback, and it don't take nothin' else.

It's Piggly Wiggly Stores here Lord, Piggly Wigglies everywhere,

Piggly Wiggly Store here, Piggly Wigglies everywhere,

If you don't find one here, you will find one over there.

You can go to your five-, you can go to your ten-cent store,

You can go to your five-, you can go to your ten-cent store,

But if you come to my Piggly Wiggly, you won't go back there no more.

Now my friends all hate me, 'cause I got a Piggly Wiggly Store,

Now my friends all hate me, got a Piggly Wiggly Store,

I got groceries on my shelf, and they're layin' all on my floor.

Now my mama told me, papa he told me too,

Said my mama told me, papa he told me too,

Said that Piggly Wiggly Store is going to be the ruin of you.

--krdu

PATENT

- ''Self-serving store'' -- C. Saunders

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