The UK’s first self-service supermarket opened 75 years ago, changing the way we shop forever. The store in East London’s Manor Park was opened by the Co-op in January 1948.
Before the advent of the supermarket, shopkeepers would serve customers individually, asking what they needed and getting it from shelves and measuring out items to order.
This process, due to the long amount of time it took, was often a pleasurable and social pastime rather than a chore.
But when large numbers of women entered the workforce during the war, queues in grocery stores got longer and free time was reduced.
One organisation took it upon itself to modernise.
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With self-service supermarkets, they could walk among the stock on shelves and choose items for themselves. Items were already priced and pre-packed.
They were already popular in the US, with the first Piggly-Wiggly supermarket opening in 1916. Self-service stores were common by the 1930s.
By the end of the 1950s, they were all over the UK. Tesco, which started as a market stall in London, opened a self-service store in St Albans later in 1948.
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Sainsbury’s opened its first in Croydon in 1950, Waitrose in Streatham in 1955, Morrisons in 1958, Asda in Castleford in 1963 and Marks & Spencer introduced the concept to its stores throughout the 1950s.
When they first opened, many were in existing stores and empty buildings like cinemas. By the late 1950s, they were being purpose-built.
Stores needed less staff and could lower prices, driving rival and comparatively small grocers out of business.
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