Which company pioneered the self-service grocery store model in 1916?

Which company pioneered the self-service grocery store model in 1916? Piggly Wiggly pioneered it. Clarence Saunders opened the first Piggly Wiggly store in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1916, introducing a layout in which shoppers selected packaged goods themselves instead of handing a list to a clerk.

The store used turnstiles, aisles, shopping baskets, marked prices, product displays, and a checkout counter. These features reduced the need for clerks to retrieve every item and encouraged customers to browse, compare brands, and make impulse purchases. Saunders’s concept was so influential that the self-service format became the foundation of the modern supermarket.

The date is sometimes given as September 6, 1916, the company’s founding date; the store’s opening followed several days later because of construction delays. Another common mix-up is confusing Piggly Wiggly with later supermarket giants such as A&P, Safeway, or Kroger. Those companies helped scale grocery retail, but Piggly Wiggly is the canonical answer for pioneering the self-service grocery model.