Piggly Wiggly was founded back in 1916 by Clarence Saunders in the lovely Memphis Tennessee. This was during the time when grocery shoppers would have to place their orders with the clerks who would then collect the items that were on the shelves of the store. Saunders, was a man of great innovation and could see that this method of grocery shopping was clearly a waste of time and workers hours. He quickly put into place a self-serve solution that seemed outrageous at the time but would prove to be a revolution of the entire industry of grocery shopping.

Once Piggly Wiggly Corporation was set in motion, Saunders set the self-serve format into stone by formatting and issuing hundreds of franchised grocery sellers for Piggly Wiggly operation. After Piggly Wiggly climbed to its high status the original Piggly Wiggly corporation was secured as the owner of all properties under their name.

The stock market came into play for Piggly Wiggly when Saunders began to effectively trade as apart of the New York Stock Exchange. Unfortunately in the 1920’s Saunders no longer became efficient to run Piggly Wiggly and thus was no longer associated with it. Despite the loss of Saunders, Piggly Wiggly managed to live on and prosper functioning under a variety of owners.