Piggly Wiggly®, America's first true self-service grocery store, was founded in Memphis, Tennessee in 1916 by Clarence Saunders. In grocery stores of that time, shoppers presented their orders to clerks who gathered the goods from the store shelves. Saunders, a flamboyant and innovative man, noticed this method resulted in wasted time and man hours, so he came up with an unheard-of solution that would revolutionize the entire grocery industry: he developed a way for shoppers to serve themselves.Saunders' reason for choosing the intriguing name Piggly Wiggly ® remains a mystery; he was curiously reluctant to explain its origin. One story is that he saw from a train window several little pigs struggling to get under a fence, and the rhyming name occurred to him then. Someone once asked him why he had chosen such an unusual name for his organization, and Saunders' reply was, "So people will ask that very question." He wanted and found a name that would be talked about and remembered.
Piggly Wiggly always reminds me of going to Alabama as a kid. I loved it when my Mom took me to the grocery store just because I loved saying the name. It is more than just a grocery store, it is a cultural icon. The store is referenced in tons of movies including one of Matt's favorites, Sweet Home Alabama. There is even a novel out called novel Waltzing at the Piggly Wiggly by Robert Dalby.Matt did want me to point out that while Australia doesn't have a Piggly Wiggly they do have a Purple Pig where you can buy all sorts of rubber products, clamps, insulation and PVC piping.
