What’s in a name? I think William Shakespeare was wondering that same thing a couple of hundred years ago. Oddly enough, a visit to “Ol Bill’s” stomping grounds in England has piqued our curiosity about a place that’s quite familiar to Texas grocery shoppers in places like Clarksville, Sherman, Paris, and Athens.
That name? It’s the iconic store brand Piggly Wiggly. How do they know about Piggly Wiggly all the way over in England? To quote the Grateful Dead, “What a long strange trip it’s been”. Let’s get you caught up. First, there are some things you need to know about how Piggly Wiggly arrived on the scene.
The Piggly Wiggly business model focuses on smaller communities and for the most part you’ll find them in the Deep South and Midwest. The store operates similarly to the way fast food franchises operate. This means that individual stores are individually owned and operated but they all adhere to a strict code of excellence demanded by the Piggly Wiggly brand.
Piggly Wiggly and its team of owner-operators have more than 500 stores in 18 different states. The first Piggly Wiggly opened in Memphis Tennessee in September of 1916. At the time Piggly Wiggly was unique in the shopping experience it provided.
Instead of having a clerk pull items off the shelf, the store was equipped with baskets and open shelves. Consumers strolled the aisles and filled their own baskets before heading to the cashier to pay for their purchases…