Evening star., 1938-06-01
SUPER-MARKETS
GROWING RAPIDLY
Price Cuts of High-VoIume
Outlets Gain Trade
During Slump.
BY j. G. DONLEY.
pcL.al Dispat to The Star.

Special Dispatch to The Star.
NEW YORK, June lin an effort
to make the household food-dollar
go as far as possible during the cur
rent depression, housewives are taking
a different course than was followed
during the 1929-1932 run of hard
times, and for this change the food
retailers themselves get the credit, or
the blame.
1t used to be said that the food
industry was depression proof" But
the lesson of the previous depression
was that, while tonnage sales, or the
physical value Of food moving into
consumption, tended to hold relatively
constant on a per capita basis, there
was decided shifting about in prod
ucts used. from the higher to the
lower priced products. People ate as
much food, but they consumed cheaper
food, and so dollar sales volume fell
off.
The shifting during the current de-
preston has so far been more notice
able among types of retail food outlets
than from one grade or class of prod
ucts to another.
Super-markets Gain.
The trend has been toward increas-
ing sales for the self-service super
markets, and decreasing volume for
the service stores which have tried
to stand pat on prices. Instead of
htfx hno
wives are attempting to keep the grade
up and the cost down by trading at
cheaper stores" They are walking
many blocks or driving miles in the
family car to save few pennies per
purchase on almost every packaged
product.
=. 1t is estimated that, at the present
rate of so per month, some 600 addi-
tional super r-markets will be opened
this year. During 1887 at least 1900
were opened. Only seven or eight
years ago the number of such cut
price, self-serving stores did not ex-
ceed few hundred, and large pro-
portion of those in operation were
located on the Pacific Coast, the move
ment having started in Southern Cali
fornia with the "drive-in" markets,
where separate stalls were run by diff
ferent individual proprietors.
BY January l., 1888, the Super
market Institute placed the total
number of such food outlets in op-
Grafton at approximately 5000. The
American Institute of Food Distribu-
ton, in survey of the big market
field. found that more than thou
sand of these high-volume food en-
poriums did an annual volume of busi-
ness ranging between 100000 and
s3.000,0o0 With the accent on prices
rather than on service and fixtures.
some of these markets are little more
than warehouses, with cluttered floor
spaces through which the bargain
hunters push their little "baby-car-
riage baskets" picking a package here
and a can there and trundling the lot
to the cashier, and so home with a
full car or lame arm.
Ask Price Protection.
That the retailers themselves, par
ticularly some Of the big chains, are
aware of the warehouse resemblance
is shown by the fact that recently
they have asked food products manu-
facturers for warehouse price protec-
ton" on the sometimes huge floor
stocks of such super-markets. That
means that, If wholesale prices are
reduced on goods already in stock,
they expect the same rebate protec-
ton allowed on regular warehouse
stocks.
Thanks in part to these distribution
trends, which have enabled consumers
to avoid shifting large proportion
of their purchases to low-end food
products, the decrease in dollar volume
of grocery sales SO far this year has
been much less severe than recorded
for most key industries. Dun g. Brad
street estimate that retail grocery sales
for the first five months of this year
are of only to 10 per cent on the
average from the corresponding 1887
total First-quarter dollar sales of
chain groceries were down 31a per
cent.
The moderate extent of this decline
in dollar sales is the more remarkable
when We consider that the reduction
in retail prices is estimated by the
same authority at 10 per cent. How
ever, for districts dependent on one
or two large industries, running less
than half time, decreases in the dol
lar volume have run from Is to 20
per cent, indicating a smaller per
capita consumrt:on of cereals, flour,
sugar, coffee. .Aeats and other So
called star