<P> Early self - service grocery stores did not sell fresh meats or produce . Combination stores that sold perishable items were developed in the 1920s . </P> <P> Historically, there has been debate about the origin of the supermarket, with King Kullen and Ralphs of California having strong claims . Other contenders included Weingarten's Big Food Markets and Henke & Pillot . To end the debate, the Food Marketing Institute in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution and with funding from H.J. Heinz, researched the issue . It defined the attributes of a supermarket as "self - service, separate product departments, discount pricing, marketing and volume selling ." </P> <P> It has been determined that the first true supermarket in the United States was opened by a former Kroger employee, Michael J. Cullen, on 4 August 1930, inside a 6,000 - square - foot (560 m) former garage in Jamaica, Queens in New York City . The store, King Kullen, operated under the slogan "Pile it high . Sell it low ." At the time of Cullen's death in 1936, there were seventeen King Kullen stores in operation . Although Saunders had brought the world self - service, uniform stores and nationwide marketing, Cullen built on this idea by adding separate food departments, selling large volumes of food at discount prices and adding a parking lot . </P> <P> Other established American grocery chains in the 1930s, such as Kroger and Safeway at first resisted Cullen's idea, but eventually were forced to build their own supermarkets as the economy sank into the Great Depression, while consumers were becoming price - sensitive at a level never experienced before . Kroger took the idea one step further and pioneered the first supermarket surrounded on all four sides by a parking lot . </P>

When was the first supermarket opened in usa