Groceteria.com

Hi all --

I worked for Kraft Foods for ten years right out of college and one of my first assignments was to the core of Appalachia, based out of Kingsport, TN. I called on mostly Krogers, Winn-Dixies, and Food Lions, but I also had quite a few Kennedy Piggy Wigglys which were exceptionally well run.

I believe there were about a dozen or so stores in that chain, but info on them is almost non-existant. Can anyone shed some light on what happened to this chain?

Thanks!

I think they were absorbed into the K-VA-T organization, better known as Food City, based out of Abingdon, VA and also the operator of Mid-Mountian Foods, their wholesaler which supplied the Kennedy Piggly Wiggly's and other independents in the region.

Thanks, Krogerclerk. With your posting, I did some more investigating and, lo and behold, that's precisely what happened to the Kennedy's chain. I'll say this: for a rural independent operating in very rural Appalachia, they had their act together. The stores had precision management and standards were impeccibly high. Most of the other independents I worked with back then (1990s) in that region were of notably lesser quality.

Thanks for the very nice comments about Kennedy’s Piggly Wiggly. My family started Kennedy's Piggly Wiggly around 1925. After almost 75 years in business, we saw the writing on the wall. All of our stores were in small rural areas. We fought and won against several major chains like Kroger and Food Lion but when rumors started about a Wal-Mart Super Center coming to small town USA, we took notice. We studied them, visited them, and realized very quickly that you could not fight them with just 13 small stores in 13 small towns. So, after 75 years in business, we decided to sell to Food City. We both owned Mid-Mountain Foods and were good friends with the Smith’s.. We also knew that 70+ stores would survive against Wal-Mart, but 13 could not. We still miss the grocery business…..thanks walmart.