|
Wal-Mart
: The Departmental Store
Sam Walton
founded and built Wal-Mart
- the largest retail sales chain in the United States, revolutionizing
the retail business in the process.
 |
Born in Kingfish,
Oklahoma, in 1918, Walton graduated from the University
of Missouri in 1940 with a degree in economics. He began
his retail career as a management trainee at a J.C
Penny department store, and later managed a group
of retail franchise stores with his brother.
In 1962 he opened the
first "Wal-Mart" discount store in Rogers,
Arkansas. Wal-Mart became a national chain of stores
in small towns and rural areas, offering low prices
supported by high-volume purchases. His stores were
so successful that many local merchants were forced
to close their doors because of the competition.
|
Walton's leadership
and celebrated hands-on management style made Wal-Mart the
nation's largest retailer by the early 1990s, with more than
1700 stores nationwide. SAM'S CLUB - Wal-Mart's 'wholesale'
younger brother opened in April 1983 in Midwest City, Okla.
Walton served as Wal-Mart's president and CEO until 1988.
He died of cancer on 5 April 1992.
 |
 |
-
As a
child during the depression, Walton helped with family
finances by delivering newspapers and milking cows.
-
During
World War II, Walton served as a US Army intelligence
officer.
-
Walton
began computerizing Wal-Mart operations as early as 1966.
- Walton
was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in March 1992
by President George Bush, Sr., who referred to him as "an
American original who epitomizes the American dream ".
-
From 1987, Wal-Mart has
a Satellite Network (largest private satellite communication
system in the U.S.) completed, linking all operating
units of company and General Office with 2-way voice,
data and one-way video communication.
Why
are the numbers 1 through 12 printed on the wrappers of a
Burger King whopper?
Actually
the same digits appear on all Burger King sandwiches, not
just burgers, and they are all printed for the same reason:
to make sure that the sandwiches are fresh. The numbers correspond
to the numbers on clock's face. After a sandwich is cooked
and wrapped, one of the twelve numbers is slashed with a nontoxic
grease pencil. But the slash refers not to the hour at which
the burger was cooked, but to where the minute hand of the
clock is at the point the sandwich is wrapped. For example,
if a hamburger with cheese is wrapped at ten minutes after
the hour, the '2' is marked (because the minute hand has just
hit the 2).
 |
Burger King's policy
is to allow a sandwich to sit out for a maximum
of ten minutes. So any sandwich left in the bins
are discarded.
(In our example,
the burger would be thrown away after the minute
hand reached 4).
Of course Burger
King has long attempted to distinguish itself from
other fast food franchises by allowing the customer
to have their burgers 'your way'. "Have it
your way" was a popular ad jingle of Burger
King for long time
|
During
peak periods (in most locations, peak is lunch time hours,
from noon till two), sandwiches are prepared continuously
and will be sold to customers within a minute or two. During
non-peak periods, food is prepared virtually to order based
on previous sales demand at that hour, but a few of the most
popular sandwiches, burgers are prepared in advance in order
to expedite service.By the way, Burger King's new slogan
is: @ BURGER KING, YOU GOT IT!™
Do
you know how did "Dr Pepper" get its name?
Here's an interesting trivia:
What's your favorite soft-drink? Coke? Diet-Coke? Pepsi? Sprite?
Fanta? or, Dr Pepper?
Dr
Pepper - A Love Story
 |
 |
Was there ever a real
Dr.Pepper?
Yes, there was a real
one. Dr. Charles Pepper owned a drug store in Rural
Retreat, Virginia, and employed a young pharmacist names
Wade Morrison.
Unfortunately for Wade,
Dr.Pepper wasn't too happy when a romance blossommed
between his attractive daughter and the young pharmacist.
Pepper wanted to 'nip it in the bud' and thus dejected
Morrison moved to Waco, Texas and opened Morrison's
Old Corner Drug store there.
|
Morrison hired
Charles Alderton, a young English pharmacist, whose duties
included tending the store's soda fountain. Alderton noticed
the waning interest of his customers in the usual fruit-flavored
soft drinks and decided to blend several fruit flavors himself.
Alderton finally hit upon a concoction that satisfied Morrison
and his taste buds. The new drink became very popular at the
store. But what about a name for it?
Morrison never
forgot his thwarted romance and often spoke fondly of Dr.Pepper's
daughter. Patrons of his soda fountain heard of the affair,
and one of them jokingly suggested naming their new fountain
drink after the Virginia doctor, thinking it would gain his
favor. The new drink became known as Dr Pepper; it gained
widespread favor. In fact Dr Pepper today is the oldest major
soft drink brand (featured in National Food fair in 1904).
Morrison made a fortune and in that sense wreaked some revenge
on the real Dr.Charles Pepper.
But did Morrison
eventually marry Miss Pepper?
No. Unfortunately
not :-(
Story
of Breakfast Cereal
This write-up was submitted by two young readers of 'Let
us know US' - Surabhi and Suvrat, 5th grade and 3rd grade
respectively, from Itasca,IL.
Interesting story about how
Kelloggs, the world famous cereal was founded...
Corn-flakes
Born in Battle Creek
 |
One
night in the nineteenth century, Ellen Gould White,
in her dream, met God. God told her that people should
lead sinless, healthy lives, and refrain from using
tobacco, eating meat, and drinking coffee, tea and liquor.
The dream had such an impact on Miss White that she
founded the Health Reform Institute at Battle Creek,
Michigan.
Guests
were served grain and nut croquettes in place of meat
and a cereal-based beverage as a substitute for coffee.
The latter was concocted by Charles W. Post, who called
it “Postum.” He also created a dry breakfast
cereal he called “Elijah’s Manna.” People
liked the taste but not the name, and Post changed it
to Grape-Nuts.
|
 |
Another
person at the Institute was Dr. W.K Kellogg. Primarily
to help one of his patients who had broken her false
teeth, he made crisp flakes of ground corn. The doctor
named them “Corn Flakes” and went on to open
the “Kellogg” cereal company.
|
 |
Cereal
box mascots - Tusk the Elephant represented Kellogg's
Cocoa Krispies in 1971, and lived on the box front for
ten years. Tusk was more scholarly than previous cartoon
characters, and wore glasses.
In
1963, Kellogg's launched a new cereal, Froot Loops,
and introduced cereal character Toucan Sam. The colorful
toucan talked in Pig Latin (called "Toucanese")
and wore a towering hat of fruit. While Sam still graces
boxes of Froot Loops, he's gone through many changes
since his debut, including dropping the Pig Latin and
hat.
Tony
the Tiger, cartoon mascot of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes
since the early 1950s, was called “Tom-Tom the
Tiger” in the island nation of Grenada.
|
Bread
Pack Color Tags
You
know this? Good -> Better -> Best; Bread -> Butter
-> Toast!
When
you go to buy bread in the grocery store, have you ever wondered
which is the freshest, so you "squeeze" for freshness
or softness. Did you know that bread is delivered fresh to
the stores five days a week? Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday
and Saturday. And each day has a different color twist tie.
They are:
Monday - Blue
Tuesday - Green
Thursday - Red
Friday - White
Saturday - Yellow
The colors go alphabetically by color Blue - Green - Red -
White - Yellow, Monday thru Saturday. Very easy to remember...
The Color Code System
Most
of the bread you'll find on U.S. supermarket shelves arrives
housed in plastic wrappers closed by colored twist tags or
plastic tabs. The tabs serve a purpose besides aiding in keeping
the bread fresh once everyone in the family is diving into
the loaf -- their colors provide a quick visual reference
to the people whose job it is to recycle the stock by removing
older loaves while loading the shelves with fresh product.
Bread is not kept on the shelf for longer than a couple of
days. it's those colored twist tags that make this recycling
of stock practical -- because of them, the restocker has an
easy time recognizing which loaves have to be taken away.
|
 |
Those tags assist mightily
in your never getting stuck with an older loaf, even if you're
not much of a bread squeezer. In the absence of the color
cues, some of the older product might be overlooked by a harried
clerk trying to read one tiny "Best Before" date
after another. (By the by, some of these tags actually do
have such dates printed on them, and in those cases the date
does represent the date the bread is to be removed from the
store, not the date it was baked on.) As it is, shoppers should
never encounter more than two colors of tags on the shelf
at any time for any one brand of bread: that of the most recent
delivery and that of the one just before it. This will sometimes
work out to being today's and yesterday's bakings, but there
will generally be two days a week when no bread is delivered,
thus a three-day spread will be represented by the two colors
at stores that receive delivery only five times a week instead
of seven.
Is the color code quoted in
the example applicable to every breadmaker's product? No,
because there are different manufacturers out there, and each
of them uses its own system -- there's no industry-wide standard.
The code explained might or might not be the right one for
the brand you're after. Also, the schedule quoted above (fresh
bread delivered every day except Wednesday and Sunday) doesn't
hold true in every area. Different stores can be on different
rotations, and even within the same store some brands will
be coming in five times a week, while others arrive seven
days a week.
Links
of Interest:
|
