Supermarkets

The term “supermarket” was first used in the grocery trade in southern California in the 1920s. Around Los Angeles, where land was relatively inexpensive, grocery chains such as McDaniel’s, Ralph’s Grocery Company, and Alpha Beta built warehouse-like stores in which products were organized into departments. These large stores were about ten times the size of a normal grocery store and offered a far greater selection of products. These “supermarkets” also had parking lots—an appealing convenience for suburban customers, who got in the habit of stocking up on groceries in a single weekly bout of one-stop shopping. The replacement of daily marketing with one weekly shopping trip became even more common when larger refrigerators and home freezers became available in the late 1940s; these appliances allowed shoppers to stock up on months’ worth of chilled and frozen foods when they were on sale.