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A US self-service idea reshaped British shopping. From refrigeration to new consumer freedoms.

Professor Andrew Godley, co-author of The Making of the Modern Supermarket.

How did Britain turn an American retail idea into one of the most influential shopping formats in the world?

In this Q&A, Andrew Godley, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Sussex Business School, shares insights from The Making of the Modern Supermarket, co-authored with Bridget Salmon, former archivist at J. Sainsbury PLC.

He explores how self-service took root in the UK, why refrigeration transformed the shopping experience, how supermarkets reshaped women’s work and agency, and what this history reveals about today’s debates on technology, sustainability and the future of retail.

What’s the one key insight you hope readers will take away from The Making of the Modern Supermarket?

The extraordinary blessing of refrigeration. The original supermarket model, both where it was invented in the United States and in the United Kingdom, was a shop for tins and packaged food. Shoppers still went to butchers for meat, greengrocers for fruit and vegetables, and bakers for bread.

But as the supermarket model began to mature, especially in the UK, retailers began to include more refrigeration and to expand their product range to include fresh meats and more dairy products. Once investment in refrigeration throughout the cold chain reached a certain threshold, it became very easy to expand the product range. By the 1980s, the success of this refrigeration-intensive model meant that the product range had reached a level of sophistication we take for granted today.

Were there distinctive aspects of British consumer behaviour that reshaped the American supermarket model when it was introduced in the UK?

Two factors dominated how food retailers adapted the US supermarket model to the UK.

First, urban spaces in the UK were overall much denser than in the US, meaning population density was higher, and public transport predominated, unlike the rapidly suburbanising US in the 1950s.

Second, postwar government restrictions on construction continued well into the 1950s, so retailers tempted to replicate an American-style suburban supermarket were simply unable to do so; they had to convert their existing stock of shops.

Food shops built before the Second World War were primarily located in town and city centres, were long and thin, and were designed for counter service, unsuitable for the new self-service format that encouraged shoppers to browse and select goods themselves. Supermarkets in the UK were therefore smaller than in the US.

Shopping was more frequent, and less was bought on each visit because shoppers (overwhelmingly housewives) had to take food home on the bus. It was only from the mid-1970s, when the number of out-of-town stores with car parks increased, that the British consumer experience began to resemble the norm in the US suburbs.

How did British supermarkets convince shoppers to embrace self-service, and how do those strategies compare to today’s efforts to influence consumer habits, such as the shift to online shopping or self-checkout?

One of the features of the book is that we have tried to document the sheer amount of experimentation taking place among British food retailers in the 1950s and 1960s. Given the existing stock of retailer space and the restrictions on postwar reconstruction, different retailers adopted a wide variety of formats under the ‘supermarket’ name. Some, Tesco being an obvious example, had a wide variety of formats within its own store portfolio.

Because there was so much variation in shopping experience, and because there were several stores within easy walking distance in town centres, customers were able to sample these options. So, while firms obviously had to persuade customers to adopt self-service habits and move away from counter service, what was more apparent was that firms continually tested the market by changes in product ranges, store layouts and sizes, and the level of specialist service offered.

It was only in the early 1970s that the standard supermarket format we recognise today emerged as a template that all UK retailers gravitated towards. This differed from the US model, with a much greater emphasis on fresh foods and fresh meats, courtesy of all those fridges.

Self-service radically changed the customer experience in its time. How might emerging technologies like AI and automation redefine shopping behaviour in the future?

I don’t know enough about AI to speculate, but the widespread diffusion of drones will accelerate the move to online shopping and delivery in most locations. Consumers don’t need to visit stores very often to understand what is being offered online, so the frequency of store visits will continue to decline as drones make delivery cheaper.

In what ways did the rise of supermarkets empower or disadvantage women, both as consumers and as workers?

One of the book’s chapters explores how the adoption of self-service changed working practices. Much of the original material came from the Sainsbury’s archives (now held at the Museum of London—my co-author Bridget Salmon was very much the architect of that archive when she worked at Sainsbury’s).

Among British food retailers, the Sainsbury’s archive is unprecedented in scope and detail. So we were able to reconstruct patterns of employment by sex and show that as self-service expanded, and especially as larger supermarkets increased their share of the company’s sales, the share of women workers, particularly part-time women workers, increased. This reflected highly gendered assumptions among employers about work and skill, and the fact that increased demand in supermarkets was disproportionately for relatively unskilled roles.

While social historians have debated whether women consumers benefited from the diffusion of self-service, it is difficult to argue with consumers’ responses in the market. Food shopping was a highly gendered activity, with housewives undertaking the overwhelming majority of shop visits. These shoppers first gravitated toward self-service and away from counter service, and then toward larger supermarket stores.

Social surveys at the time observed that many housewives in the 1950s found the counter-service format difficult. Being dependent on advice at each counter reduced younger women’s sense of agency—something they recovered when choosing for themselves in a self-service store. Queuing at each counter also meant a lot of time was wasted compared with self-service stores. As female employment levels increased during the 1960s, especially for younger women, the opportunity cost of queuing increased.

One of the observations we draw is that there was a generational divide in women’s responses to self-service: those old enough to have shopped before the Second World War were less in favour, while those whose formative shopping experiences came later—during wartime and postwar rationing—may have felt more favourable towards it.

Can the supermarket’s transition to self-service offer lessons for contemporary firms navigating major transformations, such as implementing sustainability practices?

I suppose the obvious thing is that embarking on fundamental change is inherently complex. Many of the assumptions about how to conduct a food retailing business that had developed over decades of counter service proved useless in a self-service environment. Retailers had to learn that what customers really wanted was not what they had assumed.

How did the supermarket model introduced in the 1950s–70s shape modern food supply chains? And what legacy has it left for today’s environmental and climate challenges?

The impact on supply chains was massive and sufficiently important in its own right that we decided not to address it in this book. I shall be writing another book during the first half of 2026 to focus specifically on that question.

The implications for GHG emissions of having a food system dominated by the supermarket format, with extensive control over supply chains, are highly complex. One great advantage of a relatively concentrated food retailing sector is that voluntary agreements—such as reducing the plastic content of packaging—are easier to introduce than in a highly atomistic sector.

Rapid-fire questions

What’s the one item you always end up buying, even when it’s not on your list?

I am always curious about what is available within the plant-based meat aisle. Almost every time, I will pick something up from there and test it. Sometimes they are disgusting (I have not yet found a vegan cheese which is remotely appetising), other times they are quite remarkable (Juicy Marbles as a beef substitute – extraordinary!).

Which supermarket innovation do you think has had the biggest impact on shoppers’ lives?

Fridges, of course!

If you could bring back one feature from old-school supermarkets, what would it be?

Modern supermarkets are superior to old supermarkets in every conceivable way.

Paper list, phone app, or pure memory, how do you do your grocery shopping?

Paper! But I get told off by my kids for not doing it on the phone!

In the Marketing programmes offered by the University of Sussex Business School, students learn from experts in new ventures, business growth, strategic insight and market positioning. 

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