Piggly Wiggly®, America’s first true self-service grocery store, was founded in Memphis, Tenn. in 1916 by Clarence Saunders. In grocery stores of that time, shoppers presented their orders to clerks who gathered the goods from the store shelves. Saunders, a flamboyant and innovative man, noticed that this method resulted in wasted time and expense, so he came up with an unheard-of solution that would revolutionize the entire grocery industry: he developed a way for shoppers to serve themselves.
As we travel we find it interesting to see regional businesses that are part of the local culture. In the southern states there is a grocery store chain with a name that is just plain fun to say out loud….
”PIGGLY WIGGLY”.
Try standing up right where you are…clear your throat and say in a loud voice “PIGGLY WIGGLY”…see if you can do it without smiling. Go ahead…no one is looking!!!
The medium-sized stores seem to be everywhere. They try to source their food supplies as local as possible and brag about it in their commercials – “Local Since Forever”. Stores close to the coast offer local seafood – the fresh shrimp we purchased was delicious!
One interesting slogan they use on TV, magazines and billboards is……”Shop The Pig”
