King Kullen

King Kullen Grocery Co., Inc., is an American supermarket chain based on Long Island. The company is headquartered in Hauppauge, New York, and was founded by Michael J. Cullen on August 4, 1930. The chain operates 27 locations. It is notable for its title of "America's First Supermarket" as recognized by the Smithsonian Institution. King Kullen meets the criteria of America's First Supermarket because it was “the first to fulfill all five criteria that define the modern supermarket: separate departments; self-service; discount pricing; chain marketing; and volume dealing.” The Food Marketing Institute has stated that King Kullen “served as the catalyst for a new age in food retailing. The Super Market Institute recognizes that there is dispute regarding which store is America’s first supermarket, but “credits the modern supermarket – ‘the huge self-service, cash-and-carry, one-stop outlet with small markup, large volume, and the all-important parking lot’ – to the Great Depression and a man named Michael Cullen.” Similarly, Supermarket News noted that "[a]lthough there is some disagreement, the overwhelming majority opinion is that the supermarket was invented by Michael Cullen." Supermarket News ranks King Kullen 75th on the list of Top 75 U.S. & Canadian Food Retailers & Wholesalers. History King Kullen was founded by Michael J. Cullen, a former Kroger employee who devised the concept of the modern supermarket. While the branch manager of the Herrin, Illinois branch of the Kroger Grocery & Baking Company stores, managing 94 small stores, Cullen wrote a six-page letter to John Bonham, a Kroger vice-president, proposing a new type of food store with a focus on low prices, cash sales, and without delivery service, in larger stores (at low rents) with ample parking. He described what he envisioned as “monstrous stores, size of some to be about forty feet wide and hundred and thirty to a hundred and sixty feet deep, and they ought to be located one to three blocks off the high rent district with plenty of parking space, and some to be operated as a semi-self-service store – twenty percent service and eighty percent self-service.” In his proposal, Cullen suggested that this new type of store could achieve 10 times the volume and profits of the average Kroger or A&P, making Kroger "the greatest chain grocery concern on the face of the earth."