Supermarkets (supermarkten)

a.What is a supermarket? You all have been to the supermarket and I bet you all have loved to run around through the store pushing your trolley, with your shopping list in your hand, when you were a child. But normally you don't realize where supermarkets come from; so let me tell you something about it. The dictionary says that a supermarket is a rather large, self-service store, that sells (especially) lots of food and provisions°. It should not be confused° with a warehouse (or a department store). In a warehouse they sell goods° of several departments, not only food, also clothes, shoes, furniture…or with a drugstore, that's an American-English word for a small warehouse. You have big chains of supermarktets, but also indepedent supermarkets. Most supermarket chains have one large owner, but some supermarkets (such as Spar) have the same name, but each store has a different owner. Why do they do that? Because that way they have a good reputation. Together they stand strong and they can get much better conditions when buying their products. b.First
In 1859 Great Atlantic and Pacific Company (A&P) was founded in the USA. It wasn't really a supermarket. It was more a chain of small grocery stores. Only in 1937 they turned their (15000) stores into supermarkets. Four "Safeway" (but at the time it still was called: "Sam Seeling Company") stores opened in 1914 in Los Angels. The Safeway we know today was created by the merger° of Sam Seeling Company and Marion Skaggs Cash Stores in 1926. These days Safeway almost is a synonym of supermarket, and even the Flintstones and the Simpsons had dealings with° them. A&P en Safeway had their peak in the 1930's en 40's, nowadays they still exist and Safeway is still very big. In 1918 the first "Piggly Wiggly" store opened in Memphis. Piggly Wiggly invented the self-service system, which is the concept of supermarkets. The first supermarkets weren't very big and there was less fresh food, most of it was packed. In 1930 the first King Kullen store opened his doors, widely regarded as the first real supermarket. In 1955 supermarkets were responsible for 60% of American foodstores°, today that's 70%. c.Largest

Today's largest supermarket is Wal-Mart. They have a turnover° of 191.329 billion dollars. In 2001 they had a profit° of 6.295 billion dollars. There are 4003 Wall-Mart stores in 10 countries, and they employ 1.14 million people. UK's largest chain is Tesco.