files to enable the escape of War prisoners. Bombings during the War damaged many factories, warehouses and offices. Some even had to close down. The Great innovations (1940 – 1950) In 1947, Pierre Guichard took a trip to North America to observe growing trends. He discovered the self-service store concept. A year later, Casino opened its first self-service store in Saint-Étienne. Over a period of 10 years, 500 branches adopted this new sales principle. In 1950, one of the first cooling systems was put in place in distribution. There again, it was a type of innovation observed in the USA. Gradually, warehouses were equipped with cooling chambers and refrigerated coolers. In 1959, Casino was the first distributor to display a sell-by date on its products. This was made compulsory in December 1984 with the use-by date. Already in 1928, the Group had put in place "calendar displays" on product packaging, as a quality guarantee. The development of new formats (1950 – 1990) In 1957, Casino opened its first supermarket in Nice, under the brand Nica. The store, which was totally self-service, offered both food and non-food products. The first supermarket with the Casino name opened in May 1960 in Grenoble. A few months later, four new stores opened in Nice, Saint-Étienne, Firminy and Lyon. The first two Paris supermarkets opened in 1970 in Saint-Denis and Bagneux. In March 1970, the first Géant Casino hypermarket opened its doors in Marseille. It was then the biggest store in France with a surface of 16000 m². The shopping mall was made of 41 independent businesses and a Casino cafeteria. The SOMABRI company (SOciété des Magasins de BRIcolage/the company of DIY stores) was created in 1978 to enable Casino Group to be present on the DIY market. It opened its first two stores in 1978 in Toulouse Fenouillet and in Clermont le Brézet. Casino transferred its majority ownership to Castorama in October 1989.. The internationalization of Casino Group (1976 – 1999) In 1976, the internationalization of Casino Group started in the United States with the creation of Casino USA to operate French cafeterias in the USA. Restaurants were opened in Phoenix, Arizona, then in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Westwood Village, Costa Mesa and Seattle in California. Many convenience businesses also opened their doors under the name Le Petit Casino. The Group took over the chain Thriftymart Inc stores which then became Smart & Final