Publix is a United States supermarket chain based in Lakeland, Florida. Founded in 1930 by George W. Jenkins, its slogan is "Where Shopping is a Pleasure," in addition to "It's Been Our Pleasure," during the chain's recent seventy-fifth anniversary celebration.

Publix has operations in five states: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama. It employs over 136,000 people at its 882 retail locations, corporate offices, eight grocery distribution centers, and nine Publix brand manufacturing facilities which produce its dairy, deli, bakery, and fresh food products.

Publix Super Markets Inc. is an employee-owned, privately-held corporation. The National Center for Employee Ownership lists Publix as the largest company in the United States with at least 50% employee-ownership. Publix's 2005 sales totaled US$20.6 billion. It was ranked #104 on Fortune magazine's Fortune 500 list of U.S. companies in 2006. As of 2006, Publix has been listed by Fortune magazine as one of the "100 Best Companies to Work For" for nine straight years. It is also listed by Fortune as one of "America's Most Admired Companies." Publix has also won various local, regional, and national industry and philanthropic awards, including the highest rank for customer satisfaction among supermarkets from the American Customer Satisfaction Index.^[1]

Market

Publix's main competitors are Albertsons, Food Lion, Kroger, Sweetbay (formerly Kash 'n Karry), Wal-Mart, and Winn-Dixie.

In an effort to distinguish itself from other supermarkets, it claims to offer higher quality products and services. As with many supermarkets, the company trains employees to offer carry-out service, through which an employee offers to help take the shopping cart to the customer's car.

Included in each store is a deli, bakery, produce, floral, meats and seafood department, with some stores having a cafe, sushi, pharmacy, in store photo-lab, and liquor stores.

In addition, there is a service provided where a special order can be requested, where non-regularly stocked or rare items as well as carrying previously hard-to-find food items can then be ordered, including some that are normally only found at health food stores, including organic meats, fruits, and vegetables; In addition, vegetarian and vegan products; hypoallergenic foods; and other specialty food items can be ordered.

Publix Greenwise Markets is a concept the company is trying in response to the increase in the number and profitability of health food stores and increasing awareness of nutrition, and will focus on natural and organic items, similar to a Whole Foods Market. This is an expansion of a concept that already has been running for several years, as most stores already have a Greenwise section. The first two stores will be in Miami and West Palm Beach. It should also be noted that the Whole Foods Market has been in the health food business since 1980.

History

In 1940, Jenkins (affectionately called 'Mr. George' by his employees) mortgaged an orange grove to build Florida's first supermarket. His "food palace" had, among other things, piped-in music, air conditioning, cold cases for frozen and refrigerated items, in-store donut and flower shops and electric-eye automatic doors. The supermarket was a smash hit, but World War II materials shortages prevented him from building more for a few years. In 1945 he purchased the 19-store All American food stores chain and converted them into Publix Super Markets.

In 1951, Publix moved its headquarters to Lakeland, Florida, and built its first distribution warehouse there. At the same time, it began to close the old All American stores and replace them with brand-new stores. Publix crossed US$50 million in sales and US$1 million in profit for the first time in 1956. In 1957, the donut shop in each store was expanded into a full-service bakery.

By 1959, Publix was the dominant supermarket chain in Central Florida, and began expansion to Southeast Florida. They built a distribution center in Miami, Florida in 1963. They also started providing deli services at that time. In 1970, sales crossed US$500 million, and reached US$1 billion in 1974. This was the same year that stores began to open in Jacksonville, Florida.

In 1980, Publix became the first large grocery chain to utilize Universal Product Code scanning in all its stores. In 1982, the Presto! ATM network was launched, and quickly there was an ATM installed in every Publix Super Market. Sales crossed US$5 billion in 1989. The first store outside of Florida opened in Savannah, Georgia in 1991, and distribution and manufacturing facilities in Lawrenceville, Georgia followed soon after. Stores were soon opened in South Carolina (1993), Alabama (1996) and Tennessee (2002) as well. Publix also operates several "Pix" gasoline-convenience stores.