Publix Knowledge. Peak Performance

mortgaged an orange grove he had acquired during the Depression for a down payment on his dream store - Florida's first supermarket. His "food palace." The Food Palace was built of marble and stucco and featured ... Air conditioning. Fluorescent lighting. Electric-eye doors. Frozen food cases. Piped-in music. Eight-foot-wide aisles. Open dairy cases designed to Mr. George's specifications. In-store donut and flower shops. In 1945, with construction expansion constrained by wartime shortages ... Publix purchased a chain of 19 small All American grocery stores. In 1951, to help build and supply the stores ... A 125,000-square-foot warehouse and headquarters complex was completed in Lakeland. By 1955, gross sales had increased ... to $49 million with earnings of $830,504. In 1956, Publix recorded its first million-dollar profit year. 1963 featured two milestones for Publix, they were: The opening of the Miami Division and the first Publix Deli's