Piggly Wiggly

Piggly Wiggly, America's first true self-service grocery store, was founded in Memphis, Tenn., in 1916 by Clarence Saunders, and has four locations serving Alabama. Despite predictions that this new kind of store would fail, the first Piggly Wiggly opened September 1916 and was unlike any other grocery store of the time, with shopping baskets, open shelves, no clerks to shop for the customers. The Piggly Wiggly Corporation was established by Saunders when he opened the first store in Memphis, secured the self-service format and issued franchises to hundreds of grocery retailers for the operation of Piggly Wiggly stores. 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. Piggly Wiggly's introduction of self-service grocery shopping revolutionized the grocery industry. It also was the first to provide checkout stands, price mark every item in the store, give shoppers more for their food dollar through high volume and low profit margin retailing, 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 and franchise independent grocers to operate under the self-service method of food merchandising. Piggly Wiggly has a location in Guntersville, Ala.