SUPERMARKETS REACH A MILESTONE: THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY

David Merrefield

This month marks an important milestone in the history of the supermarket: The supermarket food-retailing concept is now 75 years old.

Most historians of food retailing credit King Kullen Grocery Co. with being the first true supermarket. The first King Kullen opened Aug. 4, 1930, in Jamaica, N.Y., a town in Queens. Perhaps chief among the numerous remarkable facts about that company is that it was founded by Michael J. Cullen and that to this day it remains family operated by the Cullen and Kennedy families. Several members of those families remain active in the chain's upper management.

The company is now based in Bethpage, N.Y., a town on Long Island not far from Queens. It operates 49 supermarkets in the region. The anniversary of King Kullen and of supermarkets is the subject of a news feature in this week's SN, starting on Page 12. The anniversary also was mentioned in the Aug. 1, 2005, issue of SN and will be further marked in the Dec. 5, 2005, issue. You'll see much about the company in this week's feature, including how the family name "Cullen" morphed to the store banner "Kullen."

One of the more interesting aspects of the anniversary is how King Kullen came to be identified as the first supermarket. After all, several stores were in operation at about the same time that had many of the trappings of present-day supermarkets. They include Ralphs Grocery Co., Piggly Wiggly, Weingarten's Big Food Markets and Henke & Pillot, according to the Food Marketing Institute.

Well, it seems the mantle of "first supermarket" was draped on King Kullen by the Smithsonian Institution. According to the Smithsonian, King Kullen was the first retailer to sweep into one store all the attributes that it considers to define a supermarket. They are: self-service, separate product departments, discount pricing, marketing and volume selling. Now, of course, supermarkets have numerous attributes in addition, such as pharmacies, fuel, fresh prepared, services and so on.

Clearly, supermarkets are more than just stores. They have played a significant role in society during the past 75 years. Here are a few of the ways, also from FMI:

- Food now costs about 6% of disposable family income, against 21% in 1930.

- Variety has increased greatly, from about 700 in-store items in 1920 to 6,000 by 1960 to 14,000 by 1980 and to 30,000 now.

- Technology has been developed that has contributed much to the efficiency of supermarkets and other industries, notably bar-code scanning.

In short, there are few retailing concepts that have contributed so much to the well-being of so many.

COSTCO PUZZLE

We've just reflected on the fact that during the past 75 years, food retailing has become an important part of culture. For instance, Winn-Dixie figured into the title of a movie not long ago. Similarly, Costco figured into another cultural medium lately, the New York Times crossword puzzle. The leading clue in the puzzle -- number one across -- was "Costco quantity." The answer was "case."

Whether or not case-lot sales are the chief characteristic of Costco's marketing strategy might be open to debate, but the point is that awareness of some attributes of its marketing strategies has drilled well into the culture. Any retailer that achieves that is positioned to benefit from much cost-free goodwill.