Along with a tutorial on freezing fruits and berries, a favorable critique of the newfangled immersion blender and three recipes for chicken casserole, the Sept. 10, 1980, issue of Taste included a tribute to the supermarket's 50th birthday.
The first Twin Cities supermarkets -- a trio of Piggly Wiggly stores -- appeared in 1933, three years after a grocer on New York's Long Island introduced self-service grocery shopping, which replaced staffers filling customers' orders while working behind counters.
Turns out the do-it-yourself format was slow to catch on. "It took about 20 years to change people's buying habits," said John Zimmer, who was meat manager of a supermarket that Kroger's leased within the Sears store on Lake Street (now the Midtown Exchange) in the late '30 and early '40s. "The parents wanted the store the way they were used to it but when the youngsters grew up, they were willing to try a different way."
Taste editor Ann Burckhardt noted that lower labor costs and a lack of wartime manpower prompted full-service grocers such as Hove's, the predecessor to Lunds, to make the switch. "We were very shy about rolling out those first baskets," said Lunds president Russell Lund. "They were really wire baskets on a four-wheeled cart. We really wondered how our customers would react."
Meat and produce departments were the last to go self-service, reported Burckhardt, and stores eventually began staying open past 6 p.m., with the Red Owl chain taking the lead. "That was about '52," recalled Red Owl executive Erling Rice. "People only had one car, and it was more convenient for the husband and wife to shop together in the evening."
And, yes, as with all tales-of-yesteryear stories regarding food, there was the requisite mention of eyebrow-raising low prices. In this case, bread for a nickel, from those 1933 Piggly Wiggly outlets.
"The big day was Saturday," said Barrett, the store's manager. "Bread was 5 cents a loaf, and people complained about it."
