George W. Jenkins

Jenkins was born in Georgia to George W. Jenkins Sr. and Annie Snelson Jenkins, one of eight children. Helping in his father’s general store introduced him to customer service and retail work.⁠[3]

Publix’s biography says the boll weevil’s impact on the local economy prompted his father to close the family store and reopen in Atlanta. As a teenager, Jenkins hoped to study electrical engineering and worked various jobs to save for education.⁠[3]

Jenkins went to Tampa hoping to benefit from Florida’s real-estate boom, but found work at Piggly Wiggly. He advanced from clerk to manager and managed its Winter Haven store from 1926 to 1930.⁠[4][5]

Jenkins left Piggly Wiggly and opened Publix Food Store in Winter Haven. The company’s history traces the name to a theater chain he liked. A second store opened across town in 1935.⁠[1]

He closed the two earlier food stores and opened a larger Publix Super Market with air conditioning, fluorescent lighting and automatic doors. The company timeline records that he mortgaged an orange grove to finance the project.⁠[4][6]

Amid wartime construction shortages, Publix acquired 19 All American stores and a warehouse from Lakeland Grocery Company, then developed larger supermarkets. A warehouse and headquarters complex was completed in Lakeland in 1951.⁠[4][6]

Publix’s retrospective says a visit to a St. Louis shopping center influenced Jenkins’s decision to lease space in a St. Petersburg center in 1952. In 1954 he raised capital to develop a shopping center in Largo, Florida.⁠[2]

Florida Southern College records Jenkins’s service as honorary chancellor in 1956 and the naming of its new field house in his honor in 1966. The honorary role was distinct from student attendance.⁠[7]

A contemporary Supermarket News obituary records Jenkins as president of the Super Market Institute from 1961 to 1963.⁠[8]

Jenkins was a member of the 1966 class of Horatio Alger Award recipients. That year he established the foundation later known as Publix Super Markets Charities, funding it with personal Publix shares.⁠[9][10][2]

Jenkins encouraged employee ownership from the company’s early years. NCEO dates Publix’s ESOP to 1974, distinguishing its later formal retirement plan from the earlier share-purchase arrangements.⁠[1][11]

Publix’s retrospective records that the Food Marketing Institute presented Jenkins with the Sydney Rabb Award in 1978 for service to consumers, communities and the industry.⁠[2]

His 1996 obituary reported that a 1989 stroke affected his speech and mobility, but he continued visiting stores and distribution centers and speaking with employees, including a store visit days before his death.⁠[8]

Publix’s retrospective dates the foundation’s renaming to Publix Super Markets Charities to 1996. It continued supporting communities in the company’s operating area.⁠[2][10]

Jenkins died in Lakeland, Florida, aged 88. On May 22, Representative Charles T. Canady commemorated his retail career and community giving in the Congressional Record.⁠[5][8]

In its sixtieth-anniversary account, Publix Super Markets Charities highlighted work on youth, education, hunger and homelessness, tracing its origins to the foundation Jenkins established with personal wealth.⁠[12][10]

Company histories describe Jenkins visiting stores, inviting employee feedback, maintaining cleanliness and emphasizing product quality. Supermarket News quoted vice chairman Mark Hollis recalling that Jenkins once supported employees’ installment share purchases through pay increases.⁠[1][8]

Publix’s 2016 biography describes a young Jenkins hoping to study electrical engineering at Georgia Tech and working to fund that ambition. The Horatio Alger Association profile instead says he went to Florida after his freshman year there in 1925. The accounts differ on his stage of study and do not establish completion of a degree.⁠[3][9]

The 1996 obituary listed six surviving children, including Howard and Carol Jenkins Barnett. At the time, Howard was Publix chairman and CEO and Carol was a director. Publix Super Markets Charities later operated a scholarship bearing Jenkins’s name for academically talented students who had overcome significant hardship.⁠[8][13]

Publix: Official website: https://www.publix.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[4]

Publix Super Markets Charities: Official website: https://publixcharities.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[10]

Florida Southern College: Official website: https://www.flsouthern.edu/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]