http://www.arktimes.com/StreetJazz/archives/2012/08/20/fayetteville-arkansas-the-strangest-idea-for-a-grocery-store-in-the-world Comments On: Fayetteville, Arkansas: The strangest idea for a grocery store in the world? by Richard Drake en-us Copyright 2013 Arkansas Times. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, Arkansas Times readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact Arkansas Times. robert@arktimes.com (Arkansas Times Webmaster) Sat, 18 May 2013 00:00:01 -0500 Sat, 18 May 2013 10:45:00 -0500 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
That store was called Sav-Mor. Apparently eliminating the letter "E" from their name cut their expenses.

As I recall, every item in their regular inventory was labeled as a generic-- plain black-and-white labels, text only. Some of the labels had consumer-friendly elaborations such as "Contents are certified to be of adequate quality."

They went pretty quickly from the price-it-yourself format to putting price tags on everything. They probably bought all of the old price guns and tape from IGA when they went digital. Alas, despite this cost-saving measure, they lasted only a few months.

Sav-Mor opend sometime in the summer of 1980. They kept a radio on in lieu of the more-expensive Muzak option. During the summer, much of the news on whatever station they tuned to consisted of "Who shot J.R.?" I seem to remember that I was at Sav-Mor when it was announced over the radio that Steve McQueen had died, so I guess they lasted into November 1980.
Posted by David Franks]]> Mon, 20 Aug 2012 14:28:26 -0500 Arkansas Times