Giant Grocery Chain Celebrates 75th Anniversary

Earlier this week, Crofton Patch listed some of the grocery store located on Route 3. The low prices were part of the celebration of the company's 75th anniversary. Shoppers can expect more themed promotions, events and in-store celebrations during the upcoming year, according to a news release.

The story goes that the man who was part of the duo that opened one of the first supermarkets in the Washington, D.C. - Baltimore region was such a perfectionist that he would worriedly pace the aisles of his stores even as he was revolutionizing the way people purchased food.

If Nehemiah Myer Cohen saw a piece of bad fruit or celery, he would make sure it was thrown out, according to a 1986 publication from the chain on the company’s history.

Cohen and Samuel Lehrman opened the first Giant supermarket in the Washington, D.C. - Baltimore area on Feb. 6, 1936 and it grew into the locally well-known grocery chain.

Giant is celebrating 75 years as a company this year.

“It is a big deal,” said Giant spokesman Jamie Miller. “You know, a lot of the things we stood for when Giant opened up in 1936 -- quality, service and value -- those were the foundations that Giant was built upon and continue to be our guiding principles. Giant’s been an instrumental part of the community for the 75 years.”

Within a year of its Depression-era opening, the supermarket was able to lower its prices by 35 percent because it sold more items, Miller said.

At first, the concept of a large supermarket felt "disorderly" to shoppers, said Tracey Deutsch, an associate professor of history at the University of Minnesota who studies food shopping and the emergence of supermarkets.

Instead of going to a neighborhood butcher, apothecary or grocer, residents were expected to walk into one sprawling store and find all their week’s groceries.

“They felt ungainly to people and stood out in the retail landscape,” she said of supermarkets.

The first businesses to ask consumers to completely change the way they shopped were trying something that would turn out to be revolutionary.

“It was transformative,” Deutsch said. “The way we live is designed around this model now ... We have this understanding that that is how shopping will work. We organized communities around that.”

The company will organize monthly celebrations and promotions commemorating the store’s history and contributions to the community.

Last month, Giant hosted cake cutting ceremonies at all of its locations.

The chain now operates 178 stores, 100 of which are in Maryland, and employs more than 22,000 associates in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and Washington, D.C.