What began with one man cutting meat in his future father-in-law’s store has grown into a multi-generational grocery company built on hospitality and quality in north-central Mississippi.
Located at 1770 Commerce St. in Grenada, between Memphis and Jackson, Grocery Basket celebrated its 50th anniversary June 18 with a community celebration featuring company officials, employees, vendor partners and local leaders.
Third-generation President and CFO William Burns, who runs the company along with second-generation family members, noted that many independent grocers these days are being bought out, consolidated or shuttered.
“It’s not every day that you get a multi-generational business in this industry,” he said. “We’ve got a real opportunity to keep on keeping on – and this anniversary is a chance for us to recommit to the community, to our customers and to our team members and associates who make that possible every single day.”
Meat cutter to store owner
Founder Guinn Moore learned to cut meat in a small store on the town square in Carthage, Mississippi, owned by his future father-in-law. Over the next several years, he worked his way through grocery jobs in Kosciusko, Carthage, Greenville, Louisville and Philadelphia, Mississippi, before leasing his first store – an A&P location in Columbia, Mississippi.
That first store launched more than two decades in the grocery business, during which Moore owned and operated the Columbia A&P, later added a superette and one of the state’s largest supermarkets at the time, National Food Store, before selling both in 1975.
Struggling to successful
In October 1976, he purchased a struggling supermarket in Kosciusko, Mississippi, and turned it into the first store to carry the Grocery Basket name. His brother, Jimmy, joined him shortly after as general manager, bringing grocery management experience from his time at Jackson-area stores.
The brothers expanded the Grocery Basket banner to Grenada in 1982, opening a new store in the Green Shopping Center along Highway 51 South on the site of a former Liberty supermarket.
The Grenada location built its reputation in part on a 72-foot fresh meat case, which at the time was billed as the largest in Mississippi for a store its size. It also was a nod to Moore’s roots as a meat cutter and the company’s tagline as “The Meat People.”
Next generation
The company’s second generation took the wheel when his son, Wayne, came into the business. He had spent time on the wholesale side of the grocery industry, working for distributors including Malone & Hyde, Fleming Companies and Associated Wholesale Grocers, before returning to run the family’s store.
Wayne Moore led the operation for about 15 years until his death at age 59 in April 2022, which put the family at a crossroads – continue as an independent, family-run business or step away.
His nephew, Burns, and other family members chose the former. Moreover, rather than just keep the doors open, they set their sights on reaching the 50-year mark.
“We looked at all the options, and none of them really satisfied what we wanted to do for the customer, for our team members and for our community,” Burns said. “That led us to one thing, which was to keep the store.
“Not a lot of people think in decades instead of months, but when you do, your decision-making changes. It’s our heritage, our family, it’s what we know.”
Their motivation was fueled, in part, by deep community ties.
“Grenada is a unique town, somewhere in the ballpark of 12,000 people in and around the county and city. There’s a Walmart, one other independent and us,” Burns said. “For us to be a mainstay going forward, that gives this community at least three grocery outlets, positioned a little differently around town. That’s an option for people, and I think that matters in a town our size.”
And the family has no plans to slow down.
Great expectations
“We’ve actually set our sights on the 100-year mark … the generation setting that goal won’t be the one to see it through … but I’ll get to give the next generation the same opportunity my family gave me,” Burns said.
Five decades on, the company and its nearly 60 employees maintain the same fundamentals that built the original store.
“The quality of your perishable products and how you treat your customers, that’s what we equate what we do to,” Burns said. “We are a hospitality company that happens to sell groceries. Our customers come to understand that we are people you shop with, not people you shop at.
“They shop with us because we’re their favorite – not necessarily because we’re the biggest or even the cheapest … and that’s because our team members treat everyone with the Golden Rule.”
That hospitality-first approach recently earned outside recognition: Grocery Basket was a 2026 recipient of Shelby Publishing’s Exceptional Independents Award, honored for its innovation, dedication and community leadership.