Editing Supermarket (section)

===Birth of the supermarket===

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.<ref name="Levinson_Page_128">{{cite book |last1=Levinson |first1=Marc |title=The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America |date=2011 |publisher=Hill and Wang |location=New York |isbn=9781429969024 |page=128 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZphE-pqXb1wC&pg=PA128 |access-date=January 8, 2023}}</ref>  By 1930, both chains were already operating multiple {{convert|12000|sqft|m2|adj=on}} self-service grocery stores.<ref name="Levinson_Page_128" />  However, as of 1930, both chains were not yet true supermarkets in the modern sense because their prices remained quite high;<ref name="Levinson_Page_128" /> as noted above, one of the most important defining features of the supermarket is cheap food.<ref name="Deener_Page_74"/>  Their main [[selling point]] was free [[parking]].<ref name="Levinson_Page_128" />  Other strong contenders in Texas included [[Weingarten's]] and [[Henke & Pillot]].<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/article/Old-timey-Houston-grocery-stores-Did-you-shop-12716238.php | title=Old timey Houston grocery stores – Did you shop at any of these? | first=Dana | last=Burke | work=[[Houston Chronicle]] | date=1 May 2020}}</ref>

To end the debate, the [[Food Marketing Institute]] in conjunction with the [[Smithsonian Institution]] and with funding from [[H.J. Heinz]], researched the issue. They defined the attributes of a supermarket as "self-service, separate product departments, discount pricing, marketing and volume selling".<ref name="Mathews">Ryan Mathews, "1926–1936: Entrepreneurs and Enterprise: A Look at Industry Pioneers like King Kullen and J. Frank Grimes, and the Institution They Created (Special Report: Social Change & the Supermarket)", ''Progressive Grocer'' 75, no. 12 (December 1996): 39–43.</ref>  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 {{convert|6000|sqft|m2|adj=on}} former garage in [[Jamaica, Queens]] in New York City.<ref name="Mathews" /><ref>{{cite web |last1=Lorr |first1=Benjamin |title=The long takeoff of skyrocketing food prices |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-grocery-prices-are-skyrocketing-because-we-ignored-their-long-takeoff/ |website=The Globe and Mail |access-date=7 November 2023 |date=13 January 2023 |quote=His first store, the King Kullen ... opened in August, 1930, in the Queens borough of New York, to immediate and astounding success.}}</ref> The store [[King Kullen]], operated under the logic of "pile it high and sell it cheap".<ref name="Deener_Page_74" /> 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.<ref>{{cite news |last = Lynwander |first = Linda |date = July 11, 1993 |title = Recollections of First Supermarket| newspaper = The New York Times| page = 9| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/11/nyregion/recollections-of-first-supermarket.html| access-date =  December 21, 2023}}</ref> Everything displayed for sale in the store "had prices clearly marked", meaning that consumers would no longer need to haggle over prices.<ref name="Deener_Page_74" />  Cullen described his store as "the world's greatest price wrecker".<ref name="Deener_Page_74" /><ref name="Levinson_Page_129">{{cite book |last1=Levinson |first1=Marc |title=The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America |date=2011 |publisher=Hill and Wang |location=New York |isbn=9781429969024 |page=129 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZphE-pqXb1wC&pg=PA129 |access-date=January 8, 2023}}</ref> At 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.<ref name="Mathews" />  Moreover, the supermarket format as pioneered by King Kullen was not only cheap, but convenient, in how it combined so many different departments under one roof which had formerly required trips to separate stores.<ref name="Hamilton_Page_13" />  

Early supermarkets like King Kullen were called "cheapy markets" by industry experts at the time because they were literally so cheap, thanks to their rock-bottom prices; this was soon replaced by the less derogatory and more positive phrase "super market".<ref name="Deener_Page_74" />  The compound phrase was then closed up to become the modern term "supermarket".<ref name="Deener_Page_73" />