Yep, that really happened: Self-serve revolution hits Warrnambool

There are those who love the fact they can whip in and out of whatever situation they need, taking their service into their own hands.

And then there are others who are passionately opposed, feeling distressed by possibly putting someone out of work.

This subject continues to raise its head, at the supermarket mostly.

While self-serve terminals have now been with us for a number of years, they are still new enough for the protest vote to be an active one.

Now it is not for us to insert our opinion on this matter, but history does give us some interesting observations on this issue.

When new technology does emerge to reduce jobs, our first thought is to turn to days past.

But in this case, the erosion of manual labour and the embracing of technology is nothing new.

Digging through our archives, we have found a couple of interesting case studies on this subject.

The first involves a Warrnambool institution, and a business whose history we'll have a closer look at on a later date, Youngers.

Youngers was located in the heart of Liebig Street and in November 1958, celebrated a significant moment in its long history.

The Standard of the day reported Youngers had opened its brand new Foodland store.

This store was the first finished step in the creation of an all new Emporium that Youngers would become.

The biggest thing about the Foodland store was that it was now offering the self-serve model to its customers.

Now supermarket self-serve in 1958 is different to what it was in 2024.

The 1950s saw the worldwide introduction of supermarkets.

Prior to this, shoppers had to tell the owner of the shop what goods they wanted and the owner would then find them on the shelf behind them and give it to the customer.

This was time and labour intensive and not surprisingly, a handful of European countries were the first to find a more effective way, which was the modern supermarket.

Given this landscape, imagine the excitement in Warrnambool ahead of the Youngers Foodland opening. There were mod-cons like trolleys to collect your goods in and push around through the store, there were areas for specialised food and a 25 foot deep-fresh refrigeration unit for perishable foods.

There was even a courtesy counter where phone orders could be made or charge accounts made use of.

An interesting side note to this is on the first day of Foodland trading, the power went off, leaving the store in temporary chaos.

Fortunately the cash register could still be operated manually and no food was spoiled before the power came back on.

The other big change in the self-serve field is related to pumping petrol.

Back in the day service stations were just that, with an attendant pumping your petrol for you.

But this was slowly overtaken by self-service, with McNeils on Raglan Parade the last to end this one-on-one service, in 2021.

At the other end of the scale, Warrnambool's first ever self-serve petrol station began in May 1980.

This was the BP station on Raglan Parade, where APCO now stands.

Petrol prices at the BP were lower, with this put down to lesser staff costs.

The reaction from other service stations in the town at the time was there was still a place for the old-fashioned service.

They said customers had told them they still liked coming to their places for the full service of petrol pumped, oil checked and windscreen washed.

And in a quote of the times, one business owner said "older people and women have told me they did not want to serve themselves".

A quirky aside to the opening of the self-serving petrol was the advertisement in The Standard that went with it.

For some unexplained reason it featured a smurf, and there was the offer of a free steak knife with each visit. Customers were encouraged to come often so they could build a set.

There is one extra little twist when it comes to Warrnambool and self-serve petrol.

While it is true BP was the first complete self-serve station, Callaghan's Motors in fact had the very first self-serve petrol pump.

It was only a single unit so doesn't count as a full station, but it was first operational in November 1959.

Customers could come along and insert coins into a slot on the wall behind the bowser and get their fuel.