JTM Marks Piggly Wiggly's 100th Anniversary With 1916 Prices

JTM Corp., which operates 19 Piggly Wiggly stores in Alabama and Georgia, celebrated the 100th anniversary of the brand by taking marketing advice from fiction's most famous candymaker, Willy Wonka. Each of the stores had 100 tickets that offered five grocery items at 1916 prices as shown in the first Piggly Wiggly advertisement on Sept. 6 of that year: a dozen large eggs for 29 cents, 12 ounces of bacon for 23 cents, a pound of butter for 28 cents, 8 pounds of potatoes for 21 cents and 4 pounds of sugar for 27 cents. The total for the five items is a whopping $1.28.

"It's a chance to celebrate the 100th anniversary by giving as many people as you can those prices from a hundred years ago," said Mike Milligan, in a Columbus Ledger-Enquirer article. Milligan now operates JTM with his brothers Keith and Gil. Their father, Tommy Milligan, founded the company in 1966.

Customers entered the drawing by filling out forms during the stores’ annual Moolahpalooza promotion in August. The winners will be notified by store managers, or consumers can check the stores’ website. The mayors in the towns in which the stores operate also proclaimed Sept. 6, 2016, Piggly Wiggly Day.

JTM operates 11 stores in the Columbus and Phenix City, Ala., area with additional locations in Opelika, Lanett and Eufaula, Ala., and LaGrange and Thomaston, Ga.

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