MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- The Pig is continuing to make a comeback drive. Piggly Wiggly Co. here, the venerable retail organization that's been franchising stores for 81 years, anticipates providing its independent members with more corporate support in the form of advertising, buying power and systems support in the next couple of years, Larry Wright, the organization's new president, said in an interview with SN. Piggly Wiggly launched its comeback in 1994 when it introduced Agenda 2000, a store upgrade program that sets guidelines for members to improve their stores' physical plants, interior decor, merchandising and community involvement.
With more than 70% of the company's 774 stores completing those upgrades, Wright said Piggly Wiggly is ready to take the program further with its plans for additional corporate support.
As Wright sees it, his mission is nothing short of the rebirth of the Piggly Wiggly franchise. "Piggly Wiggly is a very powerful family name with a lot of character to it and a lot of history behind it," Wright said on the eve of the National Grocers Association convention.
"But somewhere along the way, through the fault of no one in particular, we lost some of our dynamism, and that's what we want to recapture.
"I feel very strongly about the independent market, and although it's a declining market statistically, it doesn't have to be.
"Independents will have sustainability if they align themselves with some kind of group -- and Piggly Wiggly is such a vehicle to help sustain that market."
Among the goals for Piggly Wiggly are the following:
To develop a national image-building advertising campaign for the franchise -- its first in years.
To develop ways to leverage the company's combined buying power.
To use the power of Piggly Wiggly's wholesale suppliers to develop more systems support. Piggly Wiggly is an amalgam of 322 independent-store owners who operate 774 franchised units under the Piggly Wiggly banner, plus an additional 82 units that operate warehouse stores with other names.
The stores account for combined sales of $4.2 billion -- equivalent to the 13th-largest supermarket chain in the country.
Although Wright said he expects Piggly Wiggly to add new members every year, he anticipates annual sales growth of 3% to 5% among existing operators, with at least 50 new stores planned for 1997 -- "a modest goal," he said.
"And as we implement some of our programs, we can use the members' gains as a springboard for more ambitious goals in 1998 and beyond," he added.
Stores range in size from 10,000 to 55,000 square feet, with an average size of 24,000 square feet, although stores in the 25,000- to 35,000-square-foot range are fairly typical, Wright said. Virtually all stores are conventional operations.
Piggly Wiggly is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fleming Cos., Oklahoma City, which provides the company with resources, including funding and retail member services; however, Fleming supplies the wholesale needs of only about half the membership, while other wholesalers supply the balance of groceries and retail service needs.
Wright, 55, joined Piggly Wiggly in November as president. Most of his 38 years in the industry have been as a retailer, including 13 years at H.E. Butt Grocery Co., San Antonio, and three years as president of the 50-store Piggly Wiggly Dixieland group, based in Geneva, Ala.
When the Dixieland chain was sold to Food Giant Supermarkets, Sikeston, Mo., in 1991, Wright went to work for Fleming -- first helping Sunkyong Distribution, a Seoul, Korea-based wholesaler, to open retail stores in a joint venture with Fleming, and subsequently working with NTUC Fair Price stores in Singapore on a joint distribution venture with Fleming.
According to Wright, Piggly Wiggly lost some of its clout over the past two decades as it went through various changes in ownership -- from the original founders, to another owner, to wholesaler Malone & Hyde in 1982, and then to Fleming in 1988 when Fleming acquired Malone & Hyde.
One thing Piggly Wiggly never lost, however, "was the strong family commitment of its operators to the franchise," Wright said. "But as a corporate group, Piggly Wiggly is probably not fulfilling its responsibilities to those operators."
Nevertheless, Wright said he sees the same spirit among the second- and third-generation retailers operating Piggly Wiggly stores today as existed when the organization was new. "Without a doubt, our franchisees are dedicated to Piggly Wiggly, and their pride in the organization provides a strong springboard to achieve the kinds of programs we're working on," he said.
"These second- and third-generation people are young and dynamic operators who want to be as successful a group of entrepreneurs as their parents were. They want to change and grow, and that's very exciting and encouraging."
According to Wright, many of the new ideas Piggly Wiggly is exploring emanated from the Piggly Wiggly Operators Association, "which has opened the floodgates between the company and the membership."
Based on suggestions from the operators themselves, Piggly Wiggly introduced Agenda 2000 to re-invigorate the membership base.
"Agenda 2000 is a vehicle to move Piggly Wiggly operators into a more viable competitive position for the 21st century," Wright explained. "It's also an attempt to improve the image nationally of the total Piggly Wiggly store system and make our members more competitive."
Part of that effort involves making sure the membership adopts and sticks with the upgraded standards "to bring value back to the Piggly Wiggly name," Wright said.
"There's a very strong attitude among our operators that these changes are needed, and although some will inevitably decide not to follow the program and will lose their franchises, the vast majority will prosper because of the changes."
With the stores getting themselves into shape, one of Piggly Wiggly's next goals, Wright said, is "to raise awareness of our sales base at the national level -- to let people know that Piggly Wiggly is alive and that there's something happening out there."
Highlighting that effort will be an image-building advertising campaign by Piggly Wiggly "to get our message across," Wright said.
The advertising vehicle is likely to be cable television, and the thrust of the program will probably be somewhat similar to the successful ad campaign launched several years ago by IGA, Chicago, "because there's no need to reinvent the wheel. IGA's purpose and our purpose are the same -- to make our independent members successful," Wright said. Details of the ad campaign will be revealed at the Piggly Wiggly Operators Association convention, scheduled for July 20 to 22 in Nashville, Tenn. He anticipates the campaign will begin late this year.
To strengthen the independent operators' competitive position, Wright said he believes Piggly Wiggly must restructure itself into a servant organization -- "to become a broker of services for the entire system by harnessing programs from our supporting wholesalers and manufacturers, as well as from third-party sources.
"We want to listen to our members, our wholesalers and manufacturers and become a facilitator of synergies that each segment can bring to the table to make the members more successful in meeting all competitive situations.
"We want to position ourselves to negotiate with distributors to provide better support for the independent store. We haven't tapped the full potential that's out there," he said.
Wright said he sees opportunities for developing buying methods that combine the clout of the total membership with programs and services offered by wholesalers and manufacturers.
He said he also sees untapped opportunities for the corporate organization to work with wholesalers or various third-party sources to provide retail support systems for Piggly Wiggly's members.
