How Supermarkets Made Us Serve Ourselves

Once, a clerk stood between you and almost everything in the shop. Then shoppers began choosing goods for themselves, and a much larger system grew up behind the shelf. We follow self-service from Piggly Wiggly in 1916 to King Kullen in 1930, the shopping cart, the shelf as a set of decisions, the first UPC scan in 1974, the store behind the store, and the question of whose convenience the supermarket served, with comparisons from Britain, France and Asia. 0:00 The quiet handover 2:49 A route through the store 5:32 The package takes a speaking role 8:17 The supermarket becomes a combination 11:01 A basket gets wheels 13:26 The shelf becomes a set of decisions 16:07 A purchase becomes a signal 19:14 The store behind the store 23:05 Whose convenience 26:31 Choosing inside a system Store plans, business models and shopping examples are simplified explanations, not historical datasets. Historical figures are shown as symbolic illustrations, and no brand is endorsed. Sources: National Park Service, General Stores in the Great Smoky Mountains: https://www.nps.gov/grsm/learn/histor... National Park Service, Credit At Grocery Stores: https://home.nps.gov/articles/000/hym... Piggly Wiggly, Company history: https://www.pigglywiggly.com/history/ Clarence Saunders patent, US1242872A Self serving store: https://patents.google.com/patent/US1... University of Georgia Press, Lisa C Tolbert Beyond Piggly Wiggly: https://www.ugapress.org/978082036443... King Kullen, Company history: https://kingkullen.com/about-us/ Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Goldmans Folding Basket Carriage: https://americanhistory.si.edu/collec... Orla Watson patent, US2479530A Store basket and carriage: https://patents.google.com/patent/US2... Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Food culture supermarkets and packaging: https://americanhistory.si.edu/explor... Smithsonian National Museum of American History, From Superhighways to Supermarkets: https://americanhistory.si.edu/explor... Smithsonian National Museum of American History, How electric refrigeration shaped the cold chain: https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/e... GS1, GS1 historical timeline: https://support.gs1.org/support/solut... GS1 and Mars Wrigley, Verified by GS1 Mars Wrigley case study: https://www.gs1.org/docs/casestudies/... IBM, The UPC: https://www.ibm.com/history/upc IBM, Retail and point of sale systems: https://www.ibm.com/history/point-of-... Smithsonian National Museum of American History, A System for Abundance: https://americanhistory.si.edu/explor... USDA Economic Research Service, Distance to supermarkets is one measure of food access: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-product... USDA Economic Research Service, Distance and vehicle access influence grocery shopping: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-product... Sainsbury Archive, Self Service: https://www.sainsburyarchive.org.uk/s... Carrefour, Company history: https://www.carrefour.com/fr/groupe/h... Reardon and colleagues, Supermarket revolution in Asia: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21135... Reardon and colleagues, Supermarkets and private procurement standards: https://library.wur.nl/ojs/index.php/... USDA Economic Research Service, Food Access Research Atlas documentation: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-product... Reardon and Timmer, The Economics of the Food System Revolution: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs... #history #supermarket #shopping