Who invented the rolling supermarket cart?
As a child, when you weren’t sneaking in and being led through the aisles, you were sneaking in the products and toys your parents wouldn’t buy. The supermarket cart is today a symbol of the consumer society. But where does it come from?
"He finds that his customers stop filling their carts when they become too heavy."
It is impossible to imagine shopping in a supermarket without it. That’s what Sylvan N. Goldmann, an Oklahoma-based grocer, quickly realized. In 1937, when he converted his business to self-service, he noticed that his customers stopped filling their baskets when they became too heavy. When he saw one of them on a chair, he had the idea of attaching them to a wheelchair that customers could push to do their shopping.
"Faced with the explosion in demand, he designed and patented a fixed basket cart model in 1951."
In 1947, Rudolf Wanzl, a German manufacturer of scales and sales of agricultural machinery, began to manufacture and sell carts based on the Goldmann model. Faced with the explosion in demand, he designed and patented a fixed basket cart model in 1951.
In 1950, during a trip to the United States, Raymond Joseph, an Alsatian at the head of a steel wire utensil factory, discovered the concept of a large surface. Visionary, he bets on the development of this store format in France and launches the production of the essential tool for shopping: the rolling cart.
"Thanks to this registration and the patent, he enhances his trademark and his model, and quickly becomes the main supplier of supermarkets".
In 1960, Joseph registered the name of his trademark: Caddie*. And in 1963, he filed a patent for his cart. The same year, a partnership with Carrefour to equip the first Hyper opened by the trademark. Thanks to this registration and the patent, he developed his trademark and his model, and quickly became the main supplier of French supermarkets and indispensable on the market of the rolling supermarket cart, which is exported in more than 120 countries. As proof, it has even become part of everyday language.
* Caddie: Trademark No. 228,178 filed February 2, 1960