Bermuda's Largest Supermarket: From Piggly Wiggly to The Market Place
Welcome back to Retail Forever, and wow, it sure has been a while, hasn't it? While on vacation in Bermuda a few weeks ago, I managed to learn a bit about the Bermudian retail landscape (which, no surprise, is pretty much the same as here in the United States). Today, I'll be walking y'all through the history of The MarketPlace, taking you on a tour through two of their stores, and talking about other Bermudian stores they own, including the last Sears Hometown on earth! Let's start by exploring their history. History of The MarketPlace As you could probably guess from the title, The MarketPlace started out as Piggly Wiggly. The Crisson family opened the first store in 1939, and called it Piggly Wiggly Limited. In 1946 and 1950 respectively, the company was purchased by the Pimental family and Fernance Perry. By March 1979, Piggly Wiggly Limited had four stores, and was purchased by Alvin Ferreira, who owned the existing Modern Mart. It was in 1981 that the company was