king kullen was founded by michael j. cullen, a former kroger employee who devised the concept of the modern supermarket. while the branch manager of the herrin, illinois branch of the kroger grocery & baking company stores, managing 94 small stores, cullen wrote a six-page letter to john bonham, a kroger vice-president, proposing a new type of food store with a focus on low prices, cash sales, and without delivery service, in larger stores (at low rents) with ample parking. he described what he envisioned as “monstrous stores, size of some to be about forty feet wide and hundred and thirty to a hundred and sixty feet deep, and they ought to be located one to three blocks off the high rent district with plenty of parking space, and some to be operated as a semi-self-service store – twenty percent service and eighty percent self-service.” in his proposal, cullen suggested that this new type of store could achieve 10 times the volume and profits of the average kroger or a&p, making kroger "the greatest chain grocery concern on the face of the earth."