The Kroger Co. (KR), Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT): The Store That Helped Build the Suburbs

Supermarkets are more fragmented than many other industries, but a few leaders have risen to the top. As you might expect, the world’s largest retailer also generates the largest supermarket sales. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
(NYSE:WMT) introduced its integrated-supermarket Supercenters in 1988, and its total revenue that fiscal year came to $16 billion. A decade later, shortly after Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) joined the Dow Jones Industrial Average 2 Minute (INDEXDJX:.DJI), sales at domestic Wal-Marts alone had soared to $84 billion.

Today, grocery sales account for 55% of Wal-Mart’s U.S. revenue, which resulted in an astounding $150 billion in sales for its 2013 fiscal year. That’s more revenue from one domestic segment than all but three other Dow Jones Industrial Average 2 Minute (INDEXDJX:.DJI) components generate from their entire operations. It’s also 50% more revenue than The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR), the largest dedicated supermarket company in the country, earned over the same period.

Poppin’ bottles
One product that’s available in most supermarkets was purportedly invented exactly 237 years before the first King Kullen opened: Dom Pierre Perignon is said to have first tried champagne on Aug. 4, 1693. This date is probably apocryphal, as is the quote attributed to the monk as he first sampled his creation: “Come quickly; I am drinking the stars!” What’s not in dispute are Dom Perignon’s contributions to champagne-making that have remained in use to this day, because of their effectiveness in reducing losses from the carbon dioxide buildup that is now the hallmark of a fine champagne.

Dom Perignon wasn’t the only mastermind behind the creation of champagne as we know it, but his name is indelibly linked to this unique beverage. Whenever you celebrate with a bottle of bubbly — whether it’s because you’ve closed a big business deal, bought your dream house, graduated college, or simply made it through another year — you’re “drinking the stars,” thanks in part to a French monk who’s become as much a myth as he was a man. Cheers!

The article The Store That Helped Build the Suburbs originally appeared on Fool.com is written by Alex Planes.

Fool contributor Alex Planes holds no financial position in any company mentioned here. Add him on Google+ or follow him on Twitter, @TMFBiggles, for more insight into markets, history, and technology.The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned.

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