99-806: Ingles Markets, Inc. (stylized as ingles ) is an American supermarket chain based in Black Mountain, North Carolina . As of September 2021, the company operates 198 supermarkets in the Appalachian region of the Southeastern United States . The company is listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol IMKTA and is part of the Global Select Market tier of trading. As an adjunct to its supermarket business, Ingles owns and operates shopping centers , gas stations and
198-409: A greengrocer , butcher , bakery , fishmonger and dry goods store, in addition to a general store . Milk and other items of short shelf life were delivered by a milkman . These small retailers were the final links in a "long and tortuous food chain," as they were far too small to deal directly with most of the persons who actually harvested, processed, and distributed all that food. During
297-497: A free-standing store or shopping center development. The company owns numerous outparcels and other acreage located adjacent to the shopping centers and supermarkets it owns. Real estate owned by the company is generally located in the same geographic regions as its supermarkets. Ingles also operates 111 pharmacies and 107 gas stations at select retail locations. As of 2023, Ingles had a workforce of approximately 25,000 associates. Ingles also owns and operates nine supermarkets under
396-410: A high degree of convenience to the consumer to make the shopping experience pleasant and increase customer spending. This is done through the character of merchandising and product placement. There are many different ideas and theories in relation to layout and how product layout can influence the purchases made. One theory suggests that certain products are placed together or near one another that are of
495-542: A high volume of sales, and with of higher-margin items bought by the customers. Self-service with shopping carts (trolleys) or baskets reduces labor costs, and many supermarket chains are attempting further reduction by shifting to self-service check-outs . Historically, the earliest retailers were peddlers who marketed their wares in the streets, but by the 1920s, retail food sales in the United States had mostly shifted to small corner grocery stores. In that era,
594-519: A hundred A&P stores. By 1937, 44 percent of A&P stores were losing money. By February 1940, A&P had closed 5,950 stores and cut the percentage of money-losing stores to 18 percent. The numbers driving this process were unassailable: in A&;P's traditional grocery stores, "wages and overhead expenses" had consumed 18 percent of sales, while in A&P's newly opened supermarkets, those same numbers were less than 12 percent of sales. Once
693-595: A level never experienced before. Kroger took the idea one step further and pioneered the first supermarket surrounded on all four sides by a parking lot . For A&P, the conversion from traditional grocery stores to supermarkets came as a terrible shock for the thousands of retail employees whose lives were changed forever. But A&P had no choice but to plunge ahead. One of King Kullen's earliest imitators, Big Bear, opened its first supermarket in 1933 in New Jersey and collected more revenue in one year than over
792-549: A milk processing plant. The first Ingles store was opened by second-generation grocer Robert P. Ingle in 1963 and is located in Asheville, North Carolina . Ingle had worked in his father's store since he was five years old and was unable to convince his father to build a large store. The younger Ingle had a vision of 4000 square feet. When Elmer Ingle died in the 1950s, Robert Ingle sold the store because his mother could not run it. Seven years later at age 29, Ingle decided to build
891-575: A much wider range of non-food products: DVDs , sporting equipment, board games, and seasonal items (e.g., Christmas wrapping paper , Easter eggs , school uniforms, Valentine's Day themed gifts, Mother's Day gifts, Father's Day gifts and Halloween ). A larger full-service supermarket combined with a department store is sometimes known as a hypermarket . Other services may include those of banks, cafés, childcare centers/creches, insurance (and other financial services), mobile phone sales, photo processing, video rentals, pharmacies, and gas stations . If
990-425: A new 10,000-square-foot store. He would have to compete with larger chains and with independent stores that used cooperative distributors. To start his business, Ingle joined with his mother and sister, and they used all of their savings and a mortgage on the house. The first store opened on Hendersonville Road. In one year, that store was expanded, and in another year, a second location opened on Patton Avenue. Ingles
1089-411: A number of markets within this one supermarket. Marketers use well-researched techniques to try to control purchasing behavior. The layout of a supermarket is considered by some to consist of a few rules of thumb and three layout principles. The high-draw products are placed in separate areas of the store to keep drawing the consumer through the store. High impulse and high margin products are placed in
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#17327874846031188-401: A position to promote circulation. In most supermarkets, the entrance will be on the right-hand side because some research suggests that consumers who travel in a counter-clockwise direction spend more. However, other researchers have argued that consumers moving in a clockwise direction can form better mental maps of the store leading to higher sales in turn. The second principle of the layout
1287-429: A publicly traded company in 1987. In the 2000s, the chain started building "Ingles Gas Express" gas stations with many of its newer stores. 107 of 198 locations now have fuel stations. In February 2005, Ingles Markets announced it would restate financial statements for fiscal years 2002 and 2003 and the first three quarters of 2004, to correct the accounting for vendor allowances and certain other items. The restatement
1386-450: A similar or complementary nature to increase the average customer spend. This strategy is used to create cross-category sales similarity. In other words, the toothpaste is next to or adjacent the toothbrushes and the tea and coffee are down the same aisle as the sweet biscuits. These products complement one another and placing them near is one-way marketers try to increase purchases. For vertical placement, cheap generic brands tend to be on
1485-585: A snap purchase and to also entice them to shop down the aisle. The most obvious place supermarket layout influences consumers are at the checkout. Small displays of candy, magazines, and drinks are located at each checkout to tempt shoppers while they wait to be served. The large scale of supermarkets, while often improving cost and efficiency for customers, can place significant economic pressure on suppliers and smaller shopkeepers. Supermarkets often generate considerable food waste , although modern technologies such as biomethanation units may be able to process
1584-528: A strip that could be ploughed by one man and an ox or horse in a morning. There were many variants of the morgen , differing between the different German territories, ranging from 1 ⁄ 2 to 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 acres (2,000 to 10,100 m ). It was also used in Old Prussia , in the Balkans, Norway , and Denmark , where it was equal to about two-thirds acre (2,700 m ). Statutory values for
1683-545: A strong anti-chain rhetorical device. With public backlash came political pressure to even the playing field for smaller vendors lacking the luxury of economies of scale. In 1936, the Robinson-Patman Act was implemented as a way of preventing such large chains from using their buying power to reap advantages over small stores, although the act was not well enforced and did not have much impact on such chains. Supermarkets rapidly proliferated across both Canada and
1782-402: A supermarket is a visual merchandising project that plays a major role. Stores can creatively use a layout to alter customers' perceptions of the atmosphere. Alternatively, they can enhance the store's atmospherics through visual communications (signs and graphics), lighting, colors, and scents. For example, to give a sense of the supermarket being healthy, fresh produce is deliberately located at
1881-430: A time when clean water and food was sorely needed. Lines formed outside other stores as staff allowed, in some cases, only five shoppers inside at a time. Ingles owns 163 of its 198 supermarkets either as free-standing locations or in shopping centers where it is the anchor tenant. The remaining 35 locations are leased from various unaffiliated third parties. The company also owns 23 undeveloped sites which are suitable for
1980-540: Is "40 perches [ rods ] in length and four in breadth", meaning 220 yards by 22 yards. As detailed in the diagram, an acre was roughly the amount of land tillable by a yoke of oxen in one day. Before the enactment of the metric system , many countries in Europe used their own official acres. In France, the traditional unit of area was the arpent carré , a measure based on the Roman system of land measurement. The acre
2079-471: Is a self-service shop offering a wide variety of food , beverages and household products , organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earlier grocery stores , but is smaller and more limited in the range of merchandise than a hypermarket or big-box market . In everyday United States usage, however, " grocery store " is often used to mean "supermarket". The supermarket store format first appeared around 1930 in
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#17327874846032178-536: Is a higher risk of shoplifting , the costs of appropriate security measures ideally will be outweighed by reduced labor costs. Historically, there has been much debate about the origin of the supermarket. For example, Southern California grocery store chains Alpha Beta and Ralphs both have strong claims to being the first supermarket. By 1930, both chains were already operating multiple 12,000-square-foot (1,100 m ) self-service grocery stores. However, as of 1930, both chains were not yet true supermarkets in
2277-478: Is approximately 69.57 yards, or 208 feet 9 inches (63.61 metres), on a side. As a unit of measure, an acre has no prescribed shape; any area of 43,560 square feet is an acre. In the international yard and pound agreement of 1959, the United States and five countries of the Commonwealth of Nations defined the international yard to be exactly 0.9144 metre. The US authorities decided that, while
2376-419: Is coordination. Coordination is the organized arrangement of product that promotes sales. Products such as fast-selling and slow-selling lines are placed in strategic positions in aid of the overall sales plan. Managers sometimes place different items in fast-selling places to increase turnover or to promote a new line. The third principle is consumer convenience. The layout of a supermarket is designed to create
2475-400: Is equal to the following customary units: Perhaps the easiest way for US residents to envision an acre is as a rectangle measuring 88 yards by 55 yards ( 1 ⁄ 10 of 880 yards by 1 ⁄ 16 of 880 yards), about 9 ⁄ 10 the size of a standard American football field . To be more exact, one acre is 90.75% of a 100-yd-long by 53.33-yd-wide American football field (without
2574-418: Is exactly equal to 10 square chains, 1 ⁄ 640 of a square mile, 4,840 square yards, or 43,560 square feet, and approximately 4,047 m , or about 40% of a hectare . Based upon the international yard and pound agreement of 1959 , an acre may be declared as exactly 4,046.8564224 square metres . The acre is sometimes abbreviated ac but is usually spelled out as the word "acre". Traditionally, in
2673-562: Is in acres (8 kanal = 1 acre) and muraba (25 acres = 1 muraba = 200 kanal ), jerib , wiswa and gunta . Its use as a primary unit for trade in the United Kingdom ceased to be permitted from 1 October 1995, due to the 1994 amendment of the Weights and Measures Act , where it was replaced by the hectare – though its use as a supplementary unit continues to be permitted indefinitely. This
2772-428: Is non- union and operates with better buying power. Other competition exists from warehouse clubs such as Costco that offer savings to customers buying in bulk quantities. Superstores , such as those operated by Wal-Mart and Asda, often offer a wide range of goods and services in addition to foods. In Australia, Aldi, Woolworths and Coles are the major players running the industry with fierce competition among all
2871-642: Is perpetuated in Icelandic and the Faroese akur “field (wheat)”, Norwegian and Swedish åker , Danish ager “field”, cognate with German Acker , Dutch akker , Latin ager , Sanskrit ajr , and Greek αγρός ( agros ). In English, an obsolete variant spelling was aker . According to the Act on the Composition of Yards and Perches , dating from around 1300, an acre
2970-559: Is related to the square mile, with 640 acres making up one square mile. One mile is 5280 feet (1760 yards). In western Canada and the western United States, divisions of land area were typically based on the square mile, and fractions thereof. If the square mile is divided into quarters, each quarter has a side length of 1 ⁄ 2 mile (880 yards) and is 1 ⁄ 4 square mile in area, or 160 acres. These subunits are typically then again divided into quarters, with each side being 1 ⁄ 4 mile long, and being 1 ⁄ 16 of
3069-628: Is sometimes called the "Spanish acre" in the continental United States. The acre is commonly used in many current and former Commonwealth countries by custom, and in a few it continues as a statute measure . These include Antigua and Barbuda, American Samoa , The Bahamas , Belize, the British Virgin Islands , Canada , the Cayman Islands , Dominica , the Falkland Islands , Grenada , Ghana , Guam ,
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3168-479: Is strategically located between Interstate 40 and Highway 70 near Asheville, North Carolina, as well as the 119 acres of land on which it is situated. The facility includes the company’s headquarters and its warehouse and distribution facility. The property also includes truck servicing and fuel storage facilities. The company also owns a 139,000 square foot warehouse on 21 acres of land approximately one mile from its main warehouse and distribution facility. Goods from
3267-705: Is used in many established and former Commonwealth of Nations countries by custom. In a few, it continues as a statute measure , although not since 2010 in the UK, and not for decades in Australia , New Zealand , and South Africa . In many places where it is not a statute measure, it is still lawful to "use for trade" if given as supplementary information and is not used for land registration . One acre equals 1 ⁄ 640 (0.0015625) square mile, 4,840 square yards, 43,560 square feet, or about 4,047 square metres (0.4047 hectares ) (see below). While all modern variants of
3366-662: The petite acre (56 to 65 ca). The Normandy acre was usually divided in 4 vergées ( roods ) and 160 square perches , like the English acre. The Normandy acre was equal to 1.6 arpents , the unit of area more commonly used in Northern France outside of Normandy. In Canada, the Paris arpent used in Quebec before the metric system was adopted is sometimes called "French acre" in English, even though
3465-584: The Mendenhall Order of 1893. Surveyors in the United States use both international and survey feet, and consequently, both varieties of acre. Since the difference between the US survey acre and international acre (0.016 square metres, 160 square centimetres or 24.8 square inches), is only about a quarter of the size of an A4 sheet or US letter , it is usually not important which one is being discussed. Areas are seldom measured with sufficient accuracy for
3564-458: The Middle Ages , an acre was conceived of as the area of land that could be ploughed by one man using a team of eight oxen in one day. The acre is still a statutory measure in the United States. Both the international acre and the US survey acre are in use, but they differ by only four parts per million (see below). The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land. The acre
3663-672: The Northern Mariana Islands , Jamaica , Montserrat , Samoa , Saint Lucia , St. Helena , St. Kitts and Nevis , St. Vincent and the Grenadines , Turks and Caicos , the United Kingdom, the United States and the US Virgin Islands . In the Republic of Ireland , the hectare is legally used under European units of measurement directives ; however, the acre (the same standard statute as used in
3762-515: The end zone ). The full field, including the end zones, covers about 1.32 acres (0.53 ha). For residents of other countries, the acre might be envisioned as rather more than half of a 1.76 acres (0.71 ha) football pitch . The word acre is derived from the Norman , attested for the first time in a text of Fécamp in 1006 to the meaning of «agrarian measure». Acre dates back to the old Scandinavian akr “cultivated field, ploughed land” which
3861-544: The "mountains of food". In the United Kingdom, self-service shopping took longer to become established. Even in 1947, there were just ten self-service shops in the country. In 1951, ex-US Navy sailor Patrick Galvani, son-in-law of Express Dairies chairman, made a pitch to the board to open a chain of supermarkets across the country. The UK's first supermarket under the new Premier Supermarkets brand opened in Streatham , South London , taking ten times as much per week as
3960-459: The 1920s, the highly inefficient nature of the American food distribution system meant that the "average urban family spent fully one-third of its budget on food". One of the most important defining features of the supermarket is cheap food. The vast abundance of cheap, wholesome food which modern consumers take for granted today was simply unimaginable before the middle of the 20th century, to
4059-423: The American grocery landscape with their low overhead and low prices (while crushing numerous independent small stores along the way), a backlash to this radical alteration of food distribution infrastructure appeared in the form of numerous anti-chain campaigns. The idea of " monopsony ", proposed by Cambridge economist Joan Robinson in 1933, that a single buyer could outmaneuver a market of multiple sellers, became
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4158-458: The American supermarket stood at the pinnacle of a food production and distribution system so efficient that less than three percent of the U.S. population produced more than enough food to feed everyone. The average American adult "will spend 2 percent of their life inside" supermarkets. In the 21st century, traditional supermarkets in many countries face intense competition from discounters such as Wal-Mart, Aldi and Lidl , which typically
4257-578: The Paris arpent and the Normandy acre were two very different units of area in ancient France (the Paris arpent became the unit of area of French Canada, whereas the Normandy acre was never used in French Canada). In Germany, the Netherlands, and Eastern Europe the traditional unit of area was Morgen . Like the acre, the morgen was a unit of ploughland, representing
4356-482: The UK, not the old Irish acre , which was of a different size) is still widely used, especially in agriculture. In India, residential plots are measured in square feet or square metre, while agricultural land is measured in acres. In Sri Lanka , the division of an acre into 160 perches or 4 roods is common. In Pakistan, residential plots are measured in kanal (20 marla = 1 kanal = 605 sq yards) and open/agriculture land measurement
4455-469: The US survey acre contain 1 ⁄ 640 of a square mile or 4,840 square yards, but alternative definitions of a yard are used (see survey foot and survey yard ), so the exact size of an acre depends upon the yard upon which it is based. The US survey acre is about 4,046.872 square metres; its exact value ( 4046 + 13,525,426 / 15,499,969 m ) is based on an inch defined by 1 metre = 39.37 inches exactly, as established by
4554-627: The United States as the culmination of about two decades of retail innovations, and began to spread to other countries after extensive worldwide publicity in 1956. The supermarket typically has places for fresh meat, fresh produce , dairy , deli items, baked goods, and similar foodstuffs. Shelf space is also reserved for canned and packaged goods and for various non-food items such as kitchenware , household cleaners , pharmacy products and pet supplies. Some supermarkets also sell other household products that are consumed regularly, such as alcohol (where permitted), medicine, and clothing , and some sell
4653-542: The United States with the growth of automobile ownership and suburban development after World War II. Most North American supermarkets are located in suburban strip shopping centers as an anchor store along with other smaller retailers. They are generally regional rather than national in their company branding. Kroger is the most nationally oriented supermarket chain in the United States, but it has preserved most of its regional brands, including Ralphs , City Market , King Soopers , Fry's , Smith's , and QFC . In Canada,
4752-429: The United States". The exhibit was a rather "modest staging", not a truly comprehensive duplicate of a typical full-size U.S. supermarket, and yet it was much larger than anything the world had ever seen. Just like the American consumers who had entered the first supermarkets two decades earlier, conference attendees, local Italian visitors, and the international news media were all astonished, bewildered, and stunned by
4851-502: The acre contain 4,840 square yards, there are alternative definitions of a yard, so the exact size of an acre depends upon the particular yard on which it is based. Originally, an acre was understood as a strip of land sized at forty perches (660 ft, or 1 furlong ) long and four perches (66 ft) wide; this may have also been understood as an approximation of the amount of land a yoke of oxen could plough in one day (a furlong being "a furrow long"). A square enclosing one acre
4950-507: The acre were enacted in England, and subsequently the United Kingdom, by acts of: Historically, the size of farms and landed estates in the United Kingdom was usually expressed in acres (or acres, roods , and perches ), even if the number of acres was so large that it might conveniently have been expressed in square miles. For example, a certain landowner might have been said to own 32,000 acres of land, not 50 square miles of land. The acre
5049-437: The adjacent Swannanoa River . That and the closure of major highways throughout western North Carolina led to shortages on store shelves. The chain's credit card transactions are handled at its Asheville-area headquarters, which was flooded, causing all stores in the chain to accept only cash and check payments for days. Some stores without power and water temporarily closed, hampering rural communities with only one supermarket at
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#17327874846035148-522: The average British general store of the time. Other chains caught on, and after Galvani lost out to Tesco's Jack Cohen in 1960 to buy the 212 Irwin's chain, the sector underwent a large amount of consolidation, resulting in 'the big four' dominant UK of today: Tesco , Asda , Sainsbury's and Morrisons . In the 1950s, supermarkets frequently issued trading stamps as incentives to customers. Today, most chains issue store-specific "membership cards", "club cards", or " loyalty cards ". These typically enable
5247-637: The banner Steinberg's . By the 1950s, supermarkets had become part of the everyday lives of American consumers, but were still extremely rare outside of the United States. Most persons outside the United States had never seen a supermarket or even heard of the term. That began to change after 1956, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture presented an "American Way exhibit" at the International Food Congress in Rome, Italy. The exhibit included "the first fully stocked supermarket outside of
5346-418: The cardholder to receive special members-only discounts on certain items when the credit card-like device is scanned at the checkout. Sales of selected data generated by club cards is becoming a significant revenue stream for some supermarkets. As of 2018, there were approximately 38,000 supermarkets in the supermarket's birthplace, the United States; Americans spent $ 701 billion at supermarkets that year; and
5445-696: The chain starting in the 1970s and has been a member of the board of directors since 1997. The chain sells natural and organic products under the Harvest Farms label. A few other products are sold with the Ingles Best label. The brand of generic pharmacy products sold, Quality Choice, is not a brand exclusive to Ingles Markets. Local and regional competitors include Food City , Food Lion , Harris Teeter , Harveys , Target , Aldi , Lidl , Walmart , Kroger , Lowes Foods , Publix , and United Grocery Outlet . Supermarket A supermarket
5544-433: The chains' common practice of selling loss leaders to be anti-competitive. They are also wary of the negotiating power that large, often multinationals have with suppliers around the world. During the dot-com boom , Webvan , an online-only supermarket, was formed and went bankrupt after three years and was acquired by Amazon. The British online supermarket Ocado , which uses a high degree of automation in its warehouses,
5643-448: The clerk had to measure out and wrap the precise amount desired. Merchants did not post prices, which forced customers to haggle and bargain with clerks to reach fair prices for their purchases. This business model had already been established in Europe for several centuries. It offered extensive opportunities for social interaction: many regarded this style of shopping as "a social occasion" and would often "pause for conversations with
5742-433: The combination store. This was a grocery store which combined several departments under one roof, but generally maintained the traditional system of clerks pulling products from shelves on request. By 1929, only one in three U.S. grocery stores was a combination store. The concept of a self-service grocery store predates the supermarket; it was developed by entrepreneur Clarence Saunders at his Piggly Wiggly stores,
5841-478: The company collaborated with Eblen Charities' St. Nicholas Project on what they called "Ingles Toy Store," offering "toys, games, clothes and stocking stuffers " to needy North Carolina families. In July 2021, Ingles collaborated with Creating A Family. In September 2024, Ingles was severely impaired by flooding from Hurricane Helene . The company's distribution center in Swannanoa was surrounded by water from
5940-427: The company’s supermarkets with approximately 62% of the goods the company sells. The remaining 38% is purchased from third parties and is generally delivered directly to the stores. The proximity of the company’s purchasing and distribution operations to its stores facilitates the timely distribution of consistently high quality perishable and non-perishable items. The company owns a 1,649,000 square foot facility, which
6039-437: The consumer . Along with this path, there will be high-draw, high-impulse items that will influence the consumer to make purchases which they did not originally intend. Service areas such as restrooms are placed in a location which draws the consumer past certain products to create extra buys. Necessity items such as bread and milk are found at the rear of the store to increase the start of circulation. Cashiers' desks are placed in
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#17327874846036138-941: The convenience of shopping hours that extend into the evening or even 24 hours of the day. Supermarkets usually allocate large budgets to advertising, typically through newspapers and television. They also present elaborate in-shop displays of products. Supermarkets typically are chain stores , supplied by the distribution centers of their parent companies , thus increasing opportunities for economies of scale . Supermarkets usually offer products at relatively low prices by using their buying power to buy goods from manufacturers at lower prices than smaller stores can. They also minimize financing costs by paying for goods at least 30 days after receipt and some extract credit terms of 90 days or more from vendors. Certain products (typically staple foods such as bread, milk and sugar) are very occasionally sold as loss leaders so as to attract shoppers to their store. Supermarkets make up for their low margins by
6237-551: The different definitions to be detectable. In October 2019, the US National Geodetic Survey and the National Institute of Standards and Technology announced their joint intent to end the "temporary" continuance of the US survey foot, mile, and acre units (as permitted by their 1959 decision, above), with effect from the end of 2022. The Puerto Rican cuerda (0.39 ha; 0.97 acres)
6336-495: The eatery in a supermarket is substantial enough, the facility may be called a "grocerant", a portmanteau of "grocery" and "restaurant". The traditional supermarket occupies a large amount of floor space, usually on a single level. It is usually situated near a residential area in order to be convenient to consumers. The basic appeal is the availability of a broad selection of goods under a single roof, at relatively low prices. Other advantages include ease of parking and frequently
6435-591: The entrance to the left-hand side as the consumer will likely turn right upon entry, and this allows the consumer to do a full counter-clockwise circle around the store before returning to the checkouts. This suggests that supermarket marketers should use this theory to their advantage by placing their temporary displays of products on the right-hand side to entice you to make an unplanned purchase. Furthermore, aisle ends are extremely popular with product manufacturers, who pay top dollar to have their products located there. These aisle ends are used to lure customers into making
6534-698: The expansion of supermarkets in these countries has important repercussions for small farmers, particularly those growing perishable crops. New supply chains have developed involving cluster formation; development of specialized wholesalers; leading farmers organizing supply, and farmer associations or cooperatives. In some cases supermarkets have organized their own procurement from small farmers; in others wholesale markets have adapted to meet supermarket needs. Larger supermarkets in North America and in Europe typically sell many items among many brands, sizes and varieties. U.S. publisher Supermarket News lists
6633-403: The first of which opened in 1916. Saunders was awarded several patents for the ideas he incorporated into his stores. The stores were a financial success and Saunders began to offer franchises. The general trend since then has been to stock shelves at night so that customers, the following day, can obtain their own goods and bring them to the front of the store to pay for them. Although there
6732-548: The following categories, for example: Hypermarkets have a larger range of non-food categories such as clothing, electronics, household decoration and appliances. Most merchandise is already packaged when it arrives at the supermarket. Packages are placed on shelves, arranged in aisles and sections according to type of item. Some items, such as fresh produce, are stored in bins. Those requiring an intact cold chain are in temperature-controlled display cases. While branding and store advertising will differ from company to company,
6831-410: The following formats (store types) that sell groceries: ( commissaries ) Some supermarkets are focusing on selling more (or even exclusively) organically certified produce. Others are trying to differentiate themselves by selling fewer (or no) products containing palm oil . This as the demand of palm oil is a main driver for the destruction of rainforests. As a response to the growing concern on
6930-504: The front of the store. In terms of bakery items, supermarkets usually dedicate 30 to 40 feet of store space to the bread aisle. Supermarkets are designed to "give each product section a sense of individual difference and this is evident in the design of what is called the anchor departments; fresh produce, dairy, delicatessen, meat and the bakery". Each section has different floor coverings, style, lighting and sometimes even individual services counters to allow shoppers to feel as if there are
7029-524: The heavy use of petroleum-based plastics for food packaging , so-called " zero waste " and "plastic-free" supermarkets and groceries are on the rise. Beginning in the 1990s, the food sector in developing countries has rapidly transformed, particularly in Latin America, South-East Asia, India, China and South Africa. With growth, has come considerable competition and some amount of consolidation. The growth has been driven by increasing affluence and
7128-557: The issue. They defined the attributes of a supermarket as "self-service, separate product departments, discount pricing, marketing and volume selling". They determined that the first true supermarket in the United States was opened by a former Kroger employee, Michael J. Cullen , on 4 August 1930, inside a 6,000-square-foot (560 m ) former garage in Jamaica, Queens in New York City. The store King Kullen , operated under
7227-593: The large chains joined the supermarket trend, the new retail format exploded across the country like a wildfire. The number of American supermarkets almost tripled from 1,200 in 32 states in 1936 to over 3,000 in 47 states in 1937. It was well over 15,000 by 1950. One sign of the supermarket format's success in slashing labor costs, overhead, and food prices was that the percentage of disposable income spent by American consumers on food plunged "from 21 percent in 1930 to 16 percent in 1940". The modern era of "cheap food" had begun. As large chain stores began to dominate
7326-581: The largest such company is Loblaw , which operates stores under a variety of banners targeted to different segments and regions, including Fortinos , Zehrs , No Frills , the Real Canadian Superstore, and Loblaws, the foundation of the company. Sobeys is Canada's second largest supermarket with locations across the country, operating under many banners (Sobeys IGA in Quebec ). Québec's first supermarket opened in 1934 in Montréal, under
7425-420: The layout of a supermarket remains virtually unchanged. Although big companies spend time giving consumers a pleasant shopping experience, the design of a supermarket is directly connected to the in-store marketing that supermarkets must conduct to get shoppers to spend more money while there. Every aspect of the store is mapped out and attention is paid to color, wording and surface texture. The overall layout of
7524-418: The logic of "pile it high and sell it cheap". The store layout was designed by Joseph Unger, who originated the concept of customers using baskets to collect groceries before checking out at a counter. Everything displayed for sale in the store "had prices clearly marked", meaning that consumers would no longer need to haggle over prices. Cullen described his store as "the world's greatest price wrecker". At
7623-425: The lowest shelves, products appealing to children are placed at the mid-thigh level, and the most profitable brands are placed at eye level. The fourth principle is the use of color psychology , and the locations of the food, similar to its use in fast food branding. Consumer psychologists suggest that most buyers tend to enter the store and shop to their right first. Some supermarkets, therefore, choose to place
7722-449: The market. Initial development of supermarkets has now been followed by hypermarket growth. In addition there were investments by companies such as Makro and Metro Cash and Carry in large-scale Cash-and-Carry operations. While the growth in sales of processed foods in these countries has been much more rapid than the growth in fresh food sales, the imperative nature of supermarkets to achieve economies of scale in purchasing means that
7821-640: The modern sense because their prices remained quite high; as noted above, one of the most important defining features of the supermarket is cheap food. Their main selling point was free parking . Other strong contenders in Texas included Weingarten's and Henke & Pillot . To end the debate, the Food Marketing Institute in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution and with funding from H.J. Heinz , researched
7920-418: The most predominant areas to grab attention. Power products are placed on both sides of the aisle to create increased product awareness, and end caps are used to receive a high exposure of a certain product whether on special, promotion or in a campaign, or a new line. The first principle of the layout is circulation. Circulation is created by arranging product so the supermarket can control the traffic flow of
8019-534: The name “Sav-Mor” with the other 189 locations being Ingles Markets. The Sav-Mor store concept accommodates smaller shopping areas and carries dry groceries, dairy, fresh meat and produce, all of which are displayed in a modern, readily accessible environment. Substantially all of Ingles' stores are located within 280 miles (450 km) of its warehouse and distribution facilities, near Asheville, North Carolina. The company operates 1.65 million square feet of warehouse and distribution facilities. These facilities supply
8118-506: The order is complete, the customer will pick it up (i.e. "click-and-collect") or have it fulfilled via home delivery. Supermarkets are investing in micro-fulfillment centers with the hope that automation can help reduce the costs of online commerce and e-commerce by shortening the distances from store to home and speeding up deliveries. MFCs are said by many to be the key to profitably fulfilling online orders. The U.S. FMI food industry association, drawing on research by Willard Bishop, defines
8217-514: The point that the first American supermarket customers in the 1930s were overcome with emotion at the sight of so much cheap food. Before the 20th century, food was neither cheap, nor wholesome, nor abundant. For example, in 1812, almost 90 percent of Americans worked in food production, and they struggled to stay alive on food which was often scarce, of poor quality, and riddled with diseases which could and did often kill them. The concept of an inexpensive food market relying on economies of scale
8316-451: The refined definition would apply nationally in all other respects, the US survey foot (and thus the survey acre) would continue 'until such a time as it becomes desirable and expedient to readjust [it]'. By inference, an "international acre" may be calculated as exactly 4,046.856 422 4 square metres but it does not have a basis in any international agreement. Both the international acre and
8415-612: The rise of a middle class; the entry of women into the workforce; with a consequent incentive to seek out easy-to-prepare foods; the growth in the use of refrigerators, making it possible to shop weekly instead of daily; and the growth in car ownership, facilitating journeys to distant stores and purchases of large quantities of goods. The opportunities presented by this potential have encouraged several European companies to invest in these markets (mainly in Asia) and American companies to invest in Latin America and China. Local companies also entered
8514-419: The staff or other customers". These practices were by nature slow, had high labor intensity , and were quite expensive. The number of customers who could be attended to at one time was limited by the number of staff employed in the store. Early grocery stores were "austere" and tiny by modern standards, with as few as 450 items. Shopping for groceries often involved trips to multiple specialty shops, such as
8613-415: The standard retail grocery business model was for a clerk to fetch products from shelves behind the merchant's counter while customers waited in front of the counter, indicating the items they wanted. Customers needed to ask because "most stores were designed to keep customers (and their children) away from the food". Most foods and merchandise did not come in individually wrapped consumer-sized packages, so
8712-542: The three. The rising market share of Aldi has forced the other two to cut prices and increase their private label product ranges. The proliferation of such warehouse and superstores has contributed to the continuing disappearance of smaller, local grocery stores, the increased dependence on the automobile , and suburban sprawl because of the necessity for large floor space and increased vehicular traffic. For example, in 2009 51% of Wal-Mart's $ 251 billion domestic sales were recorded from grocery goods. Some critics consider
8811-409: The time of his death in 1936, there were seventeen King Kullen stores in operation. Although Saunders had brought the world self-service, uniform stores, and nationwide marketing, Cullen built on this idea by adding separate food departments, selling large volumes of food at discount prices and adding a parking lot. Early supermarkets like King Kullen were called "cheapy markets" by industry experts at
8910-506: The time; this was soon replaced by the phrase "super market". The compound phrase was then closed up to become the modern term "supermarket". Other established American grocery chains in the 1930s, such as Kroger and Safeway Inc. at first resisted Cullen's ideas, but were eventually forced to build their own supermarkets as the economy sank into the Great Depression . American consumers became extraordinarily price-sensitive at
9009-478: The warehouse and distribution facilities and the milk processing and packaging plant are distributed to the company’s stores by a fleet of 193 tractors and 751 trailers that the company owns, operates and maintains. Ingles operates 198 stores in six southeastern states: Ingles sells products with the Laura Lynn brand, named for Ingle's daughter Laura Lynn, now Laura Ingle Sharp. She worked in advertising for
9108-571: The waste into an economical source of energy. Also, purchases tracking may help as supermarkets then become better able to size their stock (of perishable goods), reducing food spoilage. Acre The acre ( / ˈ eɪ k ər / AY -kər ) is a unit of land area used in the British imperial and the United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet ), which
9207-597: Was a significant factor in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issuing a Wells notice to the firm in January 2006, indicating that it might bring an enforcement action against it. A settlement was reached with the SEC in April 2006 that did not require payment of a monetary penalty. Following the death of Robert Ingle on March 6, 2011, his son Robert P. Ingle II became CEO. In December 2012 and December 2013,
9306-475: Was developed by Vincent Astor . He founded the Astor Market in 1915, investing $ 750,000 of his fortune into a 165′ by 125′ (50×38-metre) corner of 95th and Broadway, Manhattan , creating, in effect, an open-air mini-mall that sold meat, fruit, produce and flowers. The expectation was that customers would come from great distances ("miles around"), but in the end, even attracting people from ten blocks away
9405-559: Was difficult, and the market folded in 1917. The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P), which was established in 1859, was an early grocery store chain in Canada and the United States. It became common in North American cities in the 1920s. Early chains like A&P did not sell fresh meats or produce. During the 1920s, to reduce the hassle of visiting multiple stores, U.S. grocery store chains like A&P introduced
9504-513: Was incorporated in 1965 in the state of North Carolina. In 1967, the company bought six Colonial supermarkets. In 1982, Ingles purchased a milk processing plant from Sealtest , which it operates as Milkco Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary. Two-thirds of Milkco's business, which was later expanded beyond dairy to include products such as citrus, tea, and bottled water , is from food service distributors, grocery warehouses, and independent specialty retailers located in 17 states as of 2010. Ingles became
9603-655: Was the first successful online-only supermarket. Ocado expanded into providing services to other supermarket firms such as Waitrose and Morrisons . Grocery stores such as Walmart employ food delivery services offered by third parties such as DoorDash . Other online food delivery services, such as Deliveroo in the United Kingdom, have begun to pay specific attention to supermarket delivery. Delivery robots are offered by various companies partnering with supermarkets. Micro-fulfillment centers (MFC) are relatively small warehouses with sophisticated automated rack-and-tote systems which prepare orders for pickup and delivery. Once
9702-479: Was used only in Normandy (and neighbouring places outside its traditional borders), but its value varied greatly across Normandy, ranging from 3,632 to 9,725 square metres, with 8,172 square metres being the most frequent value. But inside the same pays of Normandy, for instance in pays de Caux , the farmers (still in the 20th century) made the difference between the grande acre (68 ares, 66 centiares) and
9801-406: Was with the exemption of Land registration , which records the sale and possession of land, in 2010 HM Land Registry ended its exemption. The measure is still used to communicate with the public and informally (non-contract) by the farming and property industries. 1 international acre is equal to the following metric units: 1 United States survey acre is equal to: 1 acre (both variants)
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