70 free Grocery Store trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
46 free grocery store trivia questions with answers. Everyone shops in one, almost nobody knows their history. This grocery store trivia quiz covers how the supermarket was invented and who runs the ones you shop in now: Clarence Saunders and the first self-service Piggly Wiggly in 1916, King Kullen's garage in Queens, Sylvan Goldman's folding shopping cart, the pack of Juicy Fruit that was the first item ever scanned with a barcode, and the first self-checkout machine. The brand rounds cover Kroger, Walmart, A&P, Safeway, Publix, H-E-B, Wegmans, Meijer, Whole Foods and Amazon, Costco and Price Club, Aldi and its two halves, Trader Joe's and Two Buck Chuck, and the British and French giants Tesco, Sainsbury's and Carrefour. Easy questions up front for a family or office quiz night, with tougher ones on founders, dates and odd naming stories further in. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the chains, the inventions and the people, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
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Q 01Which chain, opened in Memphis in 1916, is credited as the first true self-service grocery store?
Piggly Wiggly
Customers entered through a turnstile and walked four aisles past 605 packaged items; founder Clarence Saunders patented the idea in 1917.
Q 02What did the founder of the first self-service chain say his store's odd two-word name meant?
Nothing, he made it up
He gave the same answer for his later automated store, Keedoozle, which people assumed meant "key does it all".
Q 03The first true supermarket, King Kullen, opened in 1930 inside what kind of building in Queens?
A former garage
Founder Michael J. Cullen was a former Kroger employee, and the Smithsonian recognises his 6,000-square-foot store as the first.
Q 04Who introduced one of the first shopping carts in 1937, in his Humpty Dumpty stores in Oklahoma?
Sylvan Goldman
Customers ignored them at first, so he hired models to push carts around the store until they caught on.
Q 05What everyday object inspired the design of the first shopping cart?
A folding chair
Goldman put a basket on the seat and wheels on the legs, and called them "folding basket carriers".
Q 06What was the first product ever scanned with a UPC barcode at a checkout, in 1974?
A pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum
It rang up at 8:01 a.m. at a Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio, and a facsimile is now in the Smithsonian.
Q 07In which Ohio town did that first barcode scan take place?
Troy
The store belonged to Marsh Supermarkets, an Indiana chain founded by Ermal Marsh.
Q 08In which chain was the first self-checkout machine installed, near Atlanta in 1986?
Kroger
It was built by CheckRobot of Deerfield Beach, Florida; NCR now has the biggest share of the market.
Q 09In which city did Bernard, aged 23, open his first grocery in 1883, founding the chain that bears his name?
Cincinnati
He was 23 and invested his life savings of $372; Kroger became the first grocery chain to run its own bakery.
Q 10In which Arkansas town did Sam and Bud Walton open the first Walmart in 1962?
Rogers
The company is headquartered in nearby Bentonville, where Sam had run Walton's Five and Dime.
Q 11Roughly how many people does Walmart employ, making it the world's largest private employer?
2.1 million
The Walton family still owns over half the company through Walton Enterprises.
Q 12Which chain was the largest grocery retailer in the United States from 1915 all the way to 1975?
A&P
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company had 15,000 stores by 1930 and finally closed for good in 2015.
Q 13What did A&P originally sell when it started in New York in 1859?
Tea and coffee
The name came in 1869, when the transcontinental railroad inspired the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company.
Q 21What was the name of the Austin store that John Mackey opened in 1978 before Whole Foods, spoofing a rival?
SaferWay
He and Renee Lawson borrowed $45,000 from family and friends to open it.
Q 22In which city did Costco open its first warehouse in 1983?
Seattle
Its Kirkland Signature label is named for the Seattle suburb where its headquarters later sat.
Q 23Costco's Kirkland Signature house brand is named after what?
The Washington suburb where it was once headquartered
The company moved to Kirkland in 1987 and later to Issaquah.
Q 14Why was the name Safeway chosen in 1926?
The stores were cash-only and gave no credit
Marion Skaggs thought a chain that would outlive him should not carry his own name; Merrill Lynch's founder brokered the merger.
Q 15Which Florida chain, founded in 1930, is wholly owned by its present and past employees?
Publix
George Jenkins took the name from a struggling movie theatre chain because he liked the sound of it.
Q 16Where did the founder of Florida's employee-owned chain take its name from?
A struggling movie theatre company
He had quit Piggly Wiggly after the CEO was too busy golfing to hear his ideas.
Q 17The Texas chain H-E-B was founded in 1905 by Florence Butt in which town?
Kerrville
She opened Mrs. Butt's Staple and Fancy Grocery on the ground floor of the family home; the initials are her son Howard Edward Butt's.
Q 18Which New York chain made every Fortune Best Companies to Work For list from 1998 to 2024?
Wegmans
It began in 1916 as the Rochester Fruit and Vegetable Company, run from a produce cart.
Q 19What was Hendrik Meijer's trade before opening a grocery in Greenville, Michigan, in 1934?
Barber
His 14-year-old son Fred was one of the first employees and later ran the company.
Q 20Which company bought Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion in 2017?
Amazon
Whole Foods began in Austin in 1978 as a store called SaferWay, a spoof of Safeway.
Q 24Which San Diego warehouse retailer, opened in 1976 in old Howard Hughes hangars, later merged with Costco?
Price Club
Sol Price had turned down a merger with Walmart's Sam's Club before the 1993 PriceCostco deal.
Q 25The name Aldi is a shortening of what?
Albrecht Diskont
Brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht took over their mother's store in Essen in 1946 and adopted the name in 1962.
Q 26The Albrecht brothers' company split in two in 1960. What are the two halves called?
Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd
They divide the world between them, except the US, where Aldi Süd runs Aldi and Aldi Nord owns Trader Joe's.
Q 27Which US chain did Theo Albrecht of Aldi Nord buy in 1979?
Trader Joe's
He bought it from founder Joe Coulombe; it stayed with the Aldi Nord side of the family, run by his son Theo Jr. as of 2025.
Q 28In which US state did Aldi Süd open its first American store in 1976?
Iowa
In 2024 it took over about 400 Winn-Dixie and Harveys stores across the Southeast.
Q 29In which California city did Joe Coulombe open his first South Seas-themed store in 1967?
Pasadena
The store is still trading; the company is headquartered in Monrovia.
Q 30What convenience-store chain did Joe Coulombe run before his rebrand, worried it looked too much like 7-Eleven?
Pronto Market
He dreamed up the South Seas theme on a Caribbean holiday, riffing on the pricey Trader Vic's.