On Saturday 20 August, Richard Cannon, the Cannon family patriarch, passed away peacefully, aged 94, in Port Macquarie NSW with his wife Carol by his side. Richard leaves behind Carol, his wife of 73 years, his four children, Peter, Denise, Michael and Linda, and his many grandchildren and great grandchildren.
The founder of Cannons Food Barn in Fyshwick ACT, Richard is recognised for his outstanding achievements and a vision to change the face of supermarkets in Australia to benefit the community and its families.
Richard was born in London in 1927 and lived through the bombing of London during WWII. He met his wife Carol in 1943 and in June 1949, they married and went on to have their four children, Peter, Denise, Michael and Linda.
Wanting to do something different with their lives, on 26 November 1966, Richard and Carol, along with their four children, sold up and left their home in England and immigrated to Australia as ‘10 pound Poms’, arriving in Sydney on 3 January 1967.
A new country and a new life. It didn’t take Richard long to work out what he wanted to do in this new country. Richard had always done the family’s weekly shopping back in England and the fact that ‘everyone has to eat’, he felt he was qualified to buy his first corner grocery store, in Chatswood, NSW. Over the next 10 years, Richard went on to purchase further corner stores, each time learning about the business side of groceries and successfully improving growth, but most of all learning what the customer wants.
By 1979, and now living in Canberra, Richard was keen to take on a bigger challenge and put his new ideas into practice. His vision: to change the concept of grocery shopping, to reduce overheads and allow the customer to benefit from cheaper prices. Carol found a group of vacant shops in Fyshwick, which was zoned as an industrial area, but Richard thought it was perfect for his new Food Barn store. It needed renovations to turn all the small stores into one very large open store area and so to be competitive with other Canberra supermarkets.
In August 1979, the doors were opened to Cannons Food Barn, in Townsville Street, Fyshwick, which was zoned purely as an industrial zone. It was the first major supermarket outside of the suburbs and the first supermarket of its kind in Australia. Initially the store provided marker pens for the customers to write the shelf price on the products themselves, as they filled their trolley. The products were placed directly on shelves still in the cartons and cutting out the face of the carton. This method allowed the customer to benefit from lower prices. After 12 months the store was so busy, changes needed to be made.
In 1981, Richard, with cooperation of NCR cash registers, installed the first Scanning checkout system ever seen in Australia. It’s important to remember that in 1981, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and even the household computer were unknown and unheard of.
Richard had to overcome many hurdles. As barcodes on products were few, Richard imported bar codes and these were stamped on products as the shelves were stacked. With this new concept of scanning, it needed to be accepted that price marking every item was a thing of the past. Over a period of four weeks, the customers accepted it as a price saving idea and finally, after much lobbying to parliament, the concept of non-priced goods was finally passed.
The entire store needed a new layout to accommodate six checkouts, which Richard designed to incorporate an automatic conveyer belt system with electronic eye to cater for the new technology, as well as well as a bank of huge computers. With help of the staff, the whole store was transformed within 48 hours.
Seven-day trading was a rare thing in Australia. Richard lobbied with unions and government departments to get approval and Cannons Food Barn in Fyshwick was the first store to start seven-day trading.
In 1982, Richard, with the cooperation of the credit union, installed the first EFTPOS machine seen in Australian supermarkets. Customers were now able to pay for the groceries with their bankcard and withdraw cash. The staff were now paid electronically, eliminating the “cash in the yellow envelope” system.
Richard implemented new technology and ideas never before seen in Australia and which preceded Woolworths and Coles. His innovative ideas produced many first in supermarkets nationally. Just to name a few things that Richard initiated: the first scanning supermarket system, the first computer system used in supermarkets both in ordering and price changes before the world understood computers, first barcode labelling of products, first automatic checkout conveyer belts with electronic eye, first EFTPOS machine at point of sale, first electronic wage payment for supermarket staff, first full-size supermarket to trade seven days a week, first pack-your-own checkout system, and the first to eliminate plastic bags in Australia in the early 1980s.
Cannons became number one and the busiest supermarket Australia-wide, breaking many records in sales and displays. They were voted by Choice Magazine as the cheapest groceries in the ACT 1979-1986, qualified as the fastest checkout operators in Australia, highest daily throughput of customers in any Australian supermarket, highest average sale per customer in any Australian supermarket, highest supermarket turnover per annum per square foot in Australia, No. 1 store in Buttercup bread sales in Australia, and held the record of most Arnott’s biscuits sold in one store, largest single displays for promotional products including Arnott’s and Weston biscuits, tissues, baked beans, coffee, tomato sauce, drinks and more.
Richard pioneered these innovative ideas in supermarket technology and strived for excellence. He gave the people of Canberra a foretaste of supermarkets of today. Without his vision and hard work, and the acceptance by Canberra shoppers, supermarkets in Australia might not be what they are today.
Richard had an influence on the Canberra community. At a time when unemployment was at a high, Cannons employed over 100 staff, which included those who were finding it difficult to find employment, such as military wives due their frequent transfers, the young unemployed, giving them an opportunity and teaching them good work ethics, enabling them to find further employment. Richard had a wonderful rapport with staff and customers and on many occasions comment was passed that they felt like family. His hard work and long hours, his enthusiasm and vision to succeed and overcome obstacles, and there were many, overflowed to his staff and customers. Cannons was one of the initial financial sponsors of The Canberra Cannons basketball team.
Richard had a vision to change and improve the supermarket industry to benefit customers Australian-wide. Thirty-six years later, since the sale of Cannons Food Barn, in 1986 to brothers Tim and Tom Efkarpidis, people still remember and speak fondly of how Mr Cannon changed their experience in grocery shopping and the savings that were passed on to them the customer, enabling them to reduce their weekly grocery bills.
So, every time you hear that annoying “beep beep” at the checkout, think how Richard Cannon changed our lives forever.
Richard and Carol spent their retirement years motor-homing in Australia and England and travelling overseas. They settled in Port Macquarie in 2014. After settling, Richard’s focus was on writing his story and in 2019, he published his book ‘The Cannon Family Story’.
It is with great sadness that Australia has said goodbye to a remarkable innovative dreamer, mentor and father, on 20 August 2022, when Richard passed away with his wife holding his hand, as they had done, together, throughout their 73 years of married life.
Vale, Richard Cannon, 1927-2022.
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