The Mystery Behind Piggly Wiggly's Strange Name

Piggly Wiggly was the first self-service grocery store: Instead of giving a list to a clerk so they can fetch your groceries, the store placed items on display for customers to gather themselves. It was an inspired innovation — but not so inspired that we forget that "Piggly Wiggly" is an objectively weird name. Where did it come from? According to its founder, it was just to grab people's attention.

Clarence Saunders, the Memphis businessman who founded the first Piggly Wiggly in 1916, didn't like to talk too much about the origin of his store's name. Theories abound, with some suggesting it came from Saunders watching pigs wriggle under a fence, while others say it was a reference to the winding, wiggly route customers had to take through the aisles to get to the cash register. But when asked why he gave his store such an odd name, Saunders gave another, more pithy answer: "So people will ask that very question." In short, to quote "Blades of Glory," nobody knows what it means, but it's provocative — it gets the people going.

As previously stated, grocery stores used to operate rather inefficiently before Clarence Saunders opened Piggly Wiggly. You came in with a list of groceries you wanted, handed that list to somebody who worked there, and they would gather everything for you. It was kind of like Instacart, if, instead of gamifying the shopping experience, it made you go to the store yourself to tell your shopper what you wanted. This was a great way to establish a rapport with your grocer, in much the same way you might be friendly with your butcher today to save money, but there was a way to streamline the process, and Saunders found it.

There were some growing pains, to be sure — it turns out that self-service makes shoplifting much easier — but that was counterbalanced by the many benefits this model offered store owners. For instance, shoppers could now see something interesting they liked and put it in their basket on a whim without needing to talk to a clerk (and potentially being given time to reconsider their decision). So when you go to the supermarket and pluck a soda from the cooler near the checkout aisles, you're carrying on in the grand tradition of Piggly Wiggly and its eye-catching name.