Supermarket logistics, which (or seems to me) system is built to put things on shelves in the way that creates most profit, is surely one of the essential defining advances in the last few decades of retail? I'm thinking short logistics chains and JIT?

Not my field, but perhaps you need to widen your view a little.

I'll bet there was someone at your store who was the Shiva of Stacking too?

I only worked checkouts (pre barcode scanning, other stores had it).