Tanner-Brice was incorporated to wholesale and retail "groceries, dry goods and merchandise generally." Operating in rural Georgia, the company often did business on a bartering rather than a cash basis, particularly with farmers who could exchange eggs and butter for flour or other processed merchandise. It was founded in September 1919, by Mitchell F. The following year, Saunders and his organization had direct control of over 350 Piggly Wiggly stores, and there were many others operating on a royalty basis, paying a half percent of their gross sales to retain the franchise rights.Īmong the companies that would eventually operate under the Piggly Wiggly name was the Tanner-Brice Company of Vidalia, Georgia. By 1920, stores under the Piggly Wiggly name were doing an aggregate $60 million per year business, with 35 stores in Memphis and hundreds in other cities and towns. Even some of the leading food chains, like Kroger and Safeway, operated stores under the Piggly Wiggly name before converting their parent stores to self-service. The plan was extremely successful, and the original Piggly Wiggly company extended franchises to hundreds of independent grocers who wanted to use the system and operate under the Piggly Wiggly name, giving the company a very complex history. Saunders' first store, the forerunner of contemporary supermarkets, was designed to allow customers access to shelved merchandise which they would select and carry through turnstiles to checkout counters. Prior to Saunders' introduction of Piggly Wiggly, grocery chains were essentially "economy stores," which had replaced home-delivery and credit sales with a cash-and-carry system but were not planned for self-service. Because of its restructuring, innovations, and the improving economy, the picture for Bruno's and its subsidiaries, including Piggly Wiggly Southern, brightened after 1993.Īlthough the food store chain concept was invented by A & P in 1859, the self-service food market came into being as a direct result of the first Piggly Wiggly store, established in Memphis, Tennessee by Clarence Saunders in September 1916. It was also recovering from a tragic air crash that in late 1991 had claimed the lives of Angelo and Lee Bruno, son and grandson of the company's founder, and four other company executives. Bruno's, under competitive pressure from other chains, notably Wal-Mart and Publix, was at that time restructuring its operations, closing unprofitable stores, remodeling others, and altering some of its marketing strategies. However, it left the Piggly Wiggly distribution center in Vidalia, Georgia, its original base. That year, to cut costs, Bruno's moved the Piggly Wiggly Southern corporate offices to Birmingham, Alabama, integrating them as a unit in its home office. By 1993, 57 Piggly Wiggly supermarkets were in operation, located largely in central and southern Georgia, representing 22 percent of its total number of stores. Bruno's acquired Piggly Wiggly Southern in 1988, adding it to its FoodMax, Food World, Food Fair, and Bruno's Food and Pharmacy franchises. is an immediate subsidiary of Bruno's Inc., a food and drug chain company which operates and leases food, drug, and liquor stores in five southeastern states, with the heaviest concentration in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Food retailer Piggly Wiggly Southern, Inc.
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