Tracking down origin of ‘Piggly Wiggly’ is an adventure

How did Piggly Wiggly get its name? Nobody ever got a straight answer from the company founder Clarence Saunders, but he sure had fun with it. 

According to journalist Ralph Schwartz, Saunders prepared a newspaper advertisement to run a few days before the grand opening of the first Piggly Wiggly store in 1916 in Memphis, Tenn. 

The ad copy read: “Piggly Wiggly... ain’t that a funny name? The fellow that got up that name must have a screw loose somewheres.”

Saunders would later comment: “It took me two hours to find a name that was ridiculous enough” to be talked about, laughed at, remembered…and loved. 

Memphis historian Mike Freeman offered clues in other conversations involving Saunders that the name came “from out of chaos” and was “plucked from originality.” 

Freeman, in his book “Clarence Saunders and the Founding of Piggly Wiggly,” published in 2011, speculated that Saunders may have been inspired by the old nursery rhyme “Higgledy Piggledy, my fat hen; she lays eggs for gentlemen.”

 

Or perhaps the name was related to “Uncle Wiggily’s Adventures,” a series of children’s stories by Howard R. Garis that premiered in 1910. Saunders may have read these books with his three children (born between 1903 and 1912). 

Uncle Wiggily Longears is the main character, an engaging elderly rabbit, who is lame from rheumatism. Wherever he goes, he always relies on “his candy-striped walking cane.”

 

There’s no question, Clarence Saunders found a name so unique it would stick in your head, Freeman wrote. 

And “Mr. Pig,” Piggly Wiggly’s mascot – a faithful, ever-smiling anthropomorphic pig with the small butcher’s hat – has been there right along since the very beginning, said Al Hunter, a freelance writer.

 

“Porky Pig,” the famous animated character in the Warner Bros. “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies” series of cartoons, was the first character created by the studio in 1935. “Hence, Mr. Pig came first,” Hunter asserted. “Mr. Pig is the original.” 

(For a few years, Porky was romantically inclined toward “Petunia Pig,” who came along in 1937, but their relationship faded away.)

 

Another famous animated member of the swine family, of course, is “Miss Piggy,” the Muppet character with the big hair. She debuted for Jim Henson in 1976 and “has been notable for her temperamental diva superstar personality.”

 

Mr. Pig made his first appearance in a television advertising campaign for Piggly Wiggly in 1998, and he was noticeably thinner, promoting a healthy lifestyle. 

Now in 2022, Piggly Wiggly LLC exists as an affiliate of C&S Wholesale Grocers, Inc., headquartered in Keene, N.H. 

Today, there are more than 530 Piggly Wiggly independently owned and operated stores serving communities in 17 states, including the entire Southeast. Alabama has the most stores – 103. 

Piggly Wiggly also has a strong presence in eastern North Carolina with 34 stores in these locations: Ahoskie, Ayden, Beaufort, Broadway, Burgaw, Farmville, Goldsboro, Greenville, Jacksonville, Kinston (5), Leland, Manteo, Maysville, Mount Olive, Nashville, New Bern (2), Oriental, Pinetops, Plymouth, Richlands, Riegelwood, Rocky Mount (2), Sanford, Swansboro, Wallace, Warsaw, Washington, and Wilson. 

Piggly Wiggly North Carolina LLC, which owns and operates many of stores in the state, was selected as the “Retailer of the Year” in 2019 by the North Carolina Retail Merchants Association (NCRMA). 

“In the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, Piggly Wiggly owners delivered medicine by helicopter to Burgaw (in Pender County), which had become an island, and there was no way in or out,” said NCRMA President Andy Ellen.