Oral history recording of Bob Ekland (Shaw's employee)

Oral history recording of Bob Ekland, a Shaw's employee. Interviewed by Bridget Williams.

Summary of content:
Talking about photographs - Brockton Public Market downtown store with full variety of items. Two documents dated August 1988. Stan's family business. 1950s build larger stores and strip type shopping centres outside of the downtown area. Stan built store in west Brockton and brother built store in South Portland, Maine. Old downtown stores closed c.1972. Move employees into outlying stores in same geographical areas. Pre 1939 self service coming into vogue. Experimented in downtown Brockton. Distribution centre. Purchased wholesale grocer E.C. Hall Co. Shaw's and Brockton Public Market different management styles and corporate cultures. Similar customer base. 1972 growing out of distribution centre, built new distribution centre. Meat and vegetable as well as grocery. 1977/1978 George C. Shaw and Brockton Public Market merged to create Shaw's Supermarkets. History of earlier George C. Shaw's company. Optical scanning business. Data General used Brockton as a test store for scanning 1974. 1977 installed first manufactured scanning system. 1980 all stores scanning. Association with Sainsbury's via Jeremy Grindle. Joe Barnes. Chairman. Selling minority interest in Shaw's. 1974 free standing computer to computer system. Cosmos system. Product lines. Decline of butcher skills. Hygiene. New departments including salad bars and floral departments. Speciality departments. Delicatessen. Shaw's fish departments. Joined business in 1961. Frozen food department small in early 1960s. Frozen food was expensive. Fish and deli service departments. Meat department self-service. Scanning allowed merchandising produce differently. Bakery department most successful implemented 8-9 years ago. 24 hour shopping. Sunday opening. Distribution cycle. Transport. A&P. Topco products (ph).