Aisles of plenty: how shopping habits changed

Supermarkets have not always been a way of life in Britain. David Behrens checks out some of the first self-service grocery stores.

THE WEEKLY shop has been a part of the British way of life for two generations, but as these rarely-seen pictures from the archive remind us, navigating our way around the supermarket was a skill we had to learn.

It was only in the 1960s that the self-service store that we now take for granted supplanted the traditional grocer’s shop on the corner. The ability of the chain stores to “stack ’em high and sell ’em cheap” created a sales model with which smaller shops could not compete.

But housewives had initially needed some persuading. When Sainsbury’s opened its first self-service branch in Croydon, in November 1950, it felt it necessary to print a comic strip with captions to convince customers how “easy and quick” its new arrangement really was.

“The prices and weights of all goods are clearly marked,” it reassured shoppers. “You just take what you want.”

Exactly how much was to be paid was what marked out one supermarket from another. Tesco, whose first self-service shop opened in St Albans in 1956, distinguished itself from the competition by giving shoppers Green Shield stamps with every purchase, while others plastered special offers in the window.

In Yorkshire, Morrisons introduced its first, small selfserve shop in 1958, in Bradford. It was said to be the first of its kind in the city and also the first to have three checkouts.

Five years later, the doors of what would become Asda were thrown open in Castleford – its owners having taken inspiration from supermarkets in the US, where the first had appeared even before the First World War.

But all the stores initially had one thing in common – they were in town centres amongst all the other shops. It was not until the 1980s that out-of-town Frenchstyle “hypermarkets” with their own large car parks became the norm in Britain.

PICTURES: GETTY IMAGES PICTURE: GETTY IMAGES STACKED: From top, owing to shortages, ‘not for sale’ signs are placed on the tinned foods in a Co-op shop in St John’s Wood Terrace, London, in 1941; Shoppers at Tesco’s in Elephant and Castle, London which is offering Green Shield Stamps on purchases in 1967; a supermarket window advertising special offers circa 1965; Deputy Chairman of Sainsbury’s, John Sainsbury, hands out cake to customers at one of their branches, to mark the company’s centenary in 1969. SELF SERVICE: Shoppers next to stacks of baskets at London’s first ‘help-yourself’ store at Wood Green in September 1948.

PICTURE: GETTY IMAGES SPOILT FOR CHOICE: A woman shopping in a supermarket in April 1968; it was only in the 1960s that the self-service store that we now take for granted supplanted the traditional grocer’s shop.

PICTURES: GETTY IMAGES POLITICAL CURRENCY: From top, Chancellor of the Exchequer James Callaghan and his wife Audrey shopping inside an experimental decimal coinage supermarket in May 1967; Daisy Hart, a group buyer for grocery retailer Tesco, looks at products on shelves in April 1967.