This Publix Feature Changed The Grocery Store Landscape Forever

The experience of grocery shopping in the first half of the 20th century was nothing like it is today. The shelves were lined with different products than what you'll now find at your local market, and $10 worth of groceries had a very different look — and bulk — to it. Beyond changes in products and costs, the feel of the store also wouldn't have been the same. Not, at least, until one Florida grocery store completely redefined the shopping experience with a simple addition that made everything a whole lot more pleasant: air conditioning.

What is now a household name — at least in the right part of the country — Publix, started as a humble food store in Winter Haven, Florida in 1930. Within a few years, the owner, George Jenkins, opened a second Publix Food Store in town. But it wouldn't be until the changing of the decade that he could really follow his dreams. In 1940, Jenkins closed both of those stores and opened the very first Publix Super Market, an elegant grocery store brimming with technological marvels of the age.

Summertime in Winter Haven is a hot and humid affair, with average highs in the 90s, so it is a logical place for the first air-conditioned grocery store to pop up. Considering that home air conditioning didn't really take off until the 1950s, it makes even more sense. Many movie theaters were air conditioned starting in the 1920s, and this was a huge driver for business on hot days. When it's sweltering outside, even grocery shopping can seem like a real treat if it's in a climate-controlled store.

The advantages of air conditioning grocery stores extend beyond just the customer experience as well. Refrigerators and freezers within the store do not need to work as hard to keep their contents cool in a climate-controlled space, and the longevity of fresh produce is also extended in a cooler environment. But for Jenkins and Publix, it may have been more about the technological spectacle than those small innovations.

In addition to being the first-ever air-conditioned grocery store, that first Publix Super Market also boasted another technology that we take for granted today but was groundbreaking at the time, an automatic door. Called an "electric eye door," the automatic portal was a true innovation for supermarkets, ensuring that shoppers could easily enter and exit the store without the hassle of pushing a door while loaded down with their shopping bags. Aside from technological spectacles, Publix was also innovative in the way it treated its employees. From the very start, Publix has been an employee-owned company. Staff at all levels are eligible to purchase stock after just one year of working for the company resulting in Publix being the largest employee-owned business in the United States. Publix is not a publicly-traded company, meaning that only employees can buy a piece, giving them a real stake in the business that they spend their time building.

While some of the technological marvels of Publix stores may have lost their original charm — air conditioning and automatic doors are not as exciting as they once were — employee ownership is something you can always feel good about supporting. So, if you haven't been before, it might be time to plan that first Publix shopping trip.