History
The commissary retail function developed and grew, roughly parallel to the development of the retail grocery industry. The commissaries’ 82-item stock list of 1868 was comparable to the stock assortment in a typical civilian dry goods grocery store at that time. Commissaries kept pace with developments in civilian supermarkets, and the average commissary today has approximately 11,000 line items; the largest stores have several thousand more.
The list of eligible shoppers has also grown. Originally, only active-duty Army personnel could shop. Today, personnel in all services, including the Coast Guard and National Guard, may shop in the commissary on any U.S. military installation, around the world. Retirees, first allowed to make commissary purchases in 1879, have shopping privileges, as do reservists and members of the National Guard. Spouses and dependent children of service personnel are also authorized commissary privileges.
As the role of the American military grew larger, commissaries began to spread around the world. The first overseas stores opened in the Philippines and in China in 1899 to 1900. They were soon followed by commissaries in the Caribbean and Panama. Eventually, all the services adopted the Army’s concept of commissary sales stores and tailored the concept to their own needs. The Navy and Marine Corps opened their first commissaries in 1909 and 1910, and the Air Force inherited its stores from the Army Air Forces in 1947 and 1948. By the mid-1970s, each of the services ran its own commissary agency, with differing procedures and systems: the Army Troop Support Agency (TSA), the Navy Resale System Support Office (NAVRESSO), the Commissary Section of the Marine Corps Services Command, and the Air Force Commissary Service (AFCOMS).
Read more about this topic: Defense Commissary Agency
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