Argyll Foods

Last updated

Argyll Foods
Type Public
Industry Retail
Founded1977
Defunct1996
FateName changed to Safeway
Successor Safeway (UK)
Headquarters Hayes, UK
Area served
United Kingdom
Key people
James Gulliver, (Chairman)

Argyll Foods plc was the fourth biggest supermarket operator in the United Kingdom, through its acquisitions of a number of smaller supermarkets. In 1987 the company acquired Safeway Inc.'s UK subsidiary and in 1996 it changed its name to Safeway plc.

Contents

History

Early years

The company was founded as James Gulliver Associates in 1977 by James Gulliver, a former Fine Fare Chief Executive, Alistair Grant, a marketing specialist and David Webster, a merchant banker. [1] The founders acquired two food businesses, Morgan Edwards, a business owning the Supervalu chain of foodstores, and Louis C. Edwards, a meat business in Manchester, [2] integrated them and then, in 1980, adopted the name Argyll Foods after Gulliver's place of birth.

In 1981 the company bought Oriel Foods, a food manufacturing and wholesaling business which the founders had briefly owned previously in the 1970s before they sold it to RCA Corporation and which owned Lo-Cost Discount Stores. [2] Also in 1981 the company made a £91m hostile bid for Linfood Holdings, a wholesaling and retailing group which was substantially bigger than itself and owned Gateway Foodmarkets: however the bid was referred to the Monopolies Commission and did not proceed. [3]

Presto and other acquisitions

The company went on to buy Allied Suppliers from Cavenham Foods in 1982: this brought with it the Presto, Liptons, Galbraith and R & J Templeton chains. [2] The company had become the fourth biggest supermarket with 923 stores. [4]

In 1984 Argyll acquired the Thornaby-based Amos Hinton plc which operated 55 supermarkets under the Hintons name in the North East of England, Cumbria and Yorkshire. [5] [6]

In 1985 Presto became Argyll's principal name for all larger stores as well as smaller stores in the North of England and Scotland. The Lo-Cost banner was used in the rest of England and in Wales on the smaller stores: a new Presto logo was launched and plans made for new Presto regional distribution centres in Bristol, Wakefield, Bathgate and Welwyn Garden City.

In 1986 Argyll hoped to buy Distillers plc but were hindered by the infamous Guinness share-trading fraud. [2]

Safeway acquisition

Argyll and Safeway merged in 1987 when Safeway Inc.'s United Kingdom subsidiary, Safeway Food Stores as it was then known, was put up for sale. Argyll eventually secured it for the sum of £681m, with £600m raised through a rights issue that was three times over-subscribed. [7] The merger of Argyll and Safeway was hailed by commentators as one of the most successfully integrated retail combinations in the UK, bringing together Argyll's experienced management team with a strong but somewhat under-developed retail brand. The acquisition brought with it 133 UK stores of Safeway, Inc. the first of which had been opened in 1962.

In July 1996 Argyll conducted a share buyback and then renamed itself Safeway plc. [8]

Related Research Articles

Safeway Limited is a British groceries brand, and former chain of supermarkets and convenience shops. The British Safeway was founded in 1962 by the American Safeway Inc., before being sold to Argyll Foods in 1987. It was later listed on the London Stock Exchange. It was purchased by Morrisons in March 2004. Most of its 479 shops were rebranded as Morrisons, with others being sold. The brand disappeared from the United Kingdom on 24 November 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morrisons</span> British supermarket chain

Wm Morrison Supermarkets Limited, trading as Morrisons, is the fifth largest supermarket chain in the United Kingdom. As of 2021, the company had 497 supermarkets across England, Wales and Scotland, and one in Gibraltar. The company is headquartered in Bradford, England.

Sobeys Inc. is the second largest supermarket chain in Canada after Loblaw Companies Limited, with over 1,500 stores operating across Canada under a variety of banners. Headquartered in Stellarton, Nova Scotia, it operates stores in all ten provinces and accumulated sales of more than C$25.1 billion in the fiscal 2019 operating year. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Empire Company Limited, a Canadian business conglomerate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piggly Wiggly</span> American supermarket chain

Piggly Wiggly is an American supermarket chain operating in the American Southern and Midwestern regions run by Piggly Wiggly, LLC, an affiliate of C&S Wholesale Grocers. Its first outlet opened in 1916 in Memphis, Tennessee, and is notable as the first true self-service grocery store, and the originator of various familiar supermarket features such as checkout stands, individual item price marking and shopping carts. The current company headquarters is in Keene, New Hampshire. 499 independently owned Piggly Wiggly stores currently operate across 18 states, primarily in smaller cities and towns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Safeway</span> American supermarket chain owned by Albertsons Companies, Inc

Safeway, Inc. is an American supermarket chain founded by Marion Barton Skaggs in April 1915 in American Falls, Idaho. The chain provides grocery items, food and general merchandise and features a variety of specialty departments, such as bakery, delicatessen, floral and pharmacy, as well as Starbucks coffee shops and fuel centers. It is a subsidiary of Albertsons after being acquired by private equity investors led by Cerberus Capital Management in January 2015. Safeway's primary base of operations is in the Western United States with some stores located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern Seaboard. The subsidiary is headquartered in Pleasanton, California, with its parent company, Albertsons, headquartered in Boise, Idaho.

Somerfield was a chain of small to medium-sized supermarkets operating in the United Kingdom. The company also previously owned the Kwik Save chain of discount food stores. The company was taken over by the Co-operative Group on 2 March 2009 in a £1.57 billion deal, creating the UK's fifth-largest food retailer. The Somerfield name was replaced by the Co-operative brand in a rolling programme of store conversions ending in summer 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southern Family Markets</span>

Southern Family Markets, headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, was a chain of American supermarkets owned and operated by C&S Wholesale Grocers, a distributor based in Keene, New Hampshire. The chain was operated as an affiliate of C&S. Southern Family Markets had operated a varying number of supermarkets and 10 liquor stores under the banners Southern Family Markets, Piggly Wiggly, Bruno's, and Food World. The liquor stores, all located along the gulf coast, were called SFM Liquors.

Skaggs Companies was the predecessor to many famous United States retailing chains, including Safeway, Albertsons, Osco Drug, and Longs Drugs. The company owned several drugstore chains, but all of them were sold. Skaggs Cos. became American Stores in 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hintons</span>

Amos Hinton & Sons plc was a small supermarket company from the North East of England trading as Hintons, it was acquired in a takeover by Argyll Foods in 1984.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C&S Wholesale Grocers</span> American wholesale distributor

C&S Wholesale Grocers is a national wholesale grocery supply company in the United States, based in Keene, New Hampshire. In 2021 it was the eighth-largest privately held company in the United States, as listed by Forbes. C&S owns the Piggly Wiggly grocery brand, which is independently franchised to store operators, the Grand Union supermarkets brand, as well as several private label brands, including Best Yet.

Dominick's was a Chicago-area grocery store chain and subsidiary of Safeway Inc. Dominick's distribution center was located in Northlake, Illinois, while its management offices were located in Oak Brook, Illinois.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BI-LO (United States)</span> American supermarket chain owned by Southeastern Grocers

BI-LO was an American supermarket chain owned by Southeastern Grocers, headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. In the time of the banner’s elimination, supermarkets under the BI-LO brand were operated in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.

SandpiperCI is a retail and food and beverage operator based in the Channel Islands. It mostly operates franchises of British chain stores, such as Marks & Spencer, Iceland, Morrisons, Costa Coffee, Burger King and Matalan, in British Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories. It also operates own-brand Checkers stores in Jersey and Guernsey and an Apple retailer called iQ.

Homeland is a supermarket chain in the United States. Homeland is the main supermarket banner of Homeland Acquisition Corporation, the supermarket banner's parent company, and the names are often used interchangeably. Homeland's headquarters is in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. As of 2019, it operates 79 supermarkets in Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia and Texas. Many of H.A.C., Inc.'s supermarkets also include pharmacies and fuel centers. In 2019, Homeland purchased the remaining Oklahoma Food Pyramid stores from Rogersville, Missouri based Pyramid Foods which owns Price Cutter and Ramey.

Home and Colonial Stores was once one of the United Kingdom's largest retail chains. Its formation of a vast chain of retail stores in the late 1920s is seen as the first step in the development of a UK food retail market dominated by a small number of food multiples.

Presto Foodmarkets was a chain of supermarkets and convenience stores in Great Britain, which first appeared in the early 1960s. While the fate of most of the chain's stores was conversion to Safeway, the final stores still trading as Presto were either closed or sold in 1998.

Galbraith and Sons was a retailing company based in Paisley, Scotland. The company grew to over 220 stores, establishing their own food production plants to supply their stores. Galbraith's were acquired in 1954 by Home and Colonial, becoming part of the Allied Suppliers Group. Galbraith's survived as one of the Scottish trading names for Allied Suppliers until 1987, when it disappeared as part of the Argyll Supermarkets re-branding to Safeway Stores.

Safeway is a Canadian supermarket chain of 135 full service supermarket stores mostly operating in the western provinces in Canada. It was established in 1929 as a subsidiary of the American Safeway Inc., before being sold in 2013 to Canada's second-largest supermarket chain, Sobeys, a division of the conglomerate Empire Company. Independent since 2013 from the American company it continues to use the same Safeway name and logo as of May 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southeastern Grocers</span> American supermarket company

Southeastern Grocers is a supermarket portfolio headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. The portfolio was created by Lone Star Funds in September 2013 as the new parent company for Harveys, Winn-Dixie, and Fresco y Más. Southeastern Grocers was rated #31 in the Forbes 2015 ranking of America's Largest Private Companies. In February 2017, Anthony Hucker was appointed as president and CEO of Southeastern Grocers. On August 16, 2023, all Winn-Dixie and Harveys stores were sold to German supermarket chain Aldi, and all locations will either remain open under their respective brands or convert into the ALDI brand. SEG has also agreed to divest its Fresco y Más operations, via a sale of the banner that the company expects to close in the first quarter of 2024. The Fresco y Más banner, including all 28 stores and four pharmacies, will be sold to Fresco Retail Group LLC, an investment group focused on food and grocery. Fresco Retail Group, LLC plans for all stores and pharmacies in the Fresco y Más banner to continue operating as they are presently.

References

  1. James Gulliver, Chairman of Food Group, dies at 66
  2. 1 2 3 4 Brian Basham Obituary: James Gulliver, The Independent, 23 September 1996
  3. Andrew Seth and Geoffrey Randall The Grocers, London and Dover, New Hampshiere: Kogan, p.103
  4. Seth, Andrew (2001). The Grocers: The Rise and Rise of the Supermarket Chains, p.103. ISBN   9780749435493 . Retrieved 26 April 2012.
  5. "Not the weakest link in the chain". Northern Echo. 4 October 2003. Archived from the original on 1 October 2012. Retrieved 12 October 2019.
  6. Amos, Mike (3 September 2008). "Pansy parade". Northern Echo. Archived from the original on 22 May 2011. Retrieved 5 April 2010.
  7. Geoffrey Owen Corporate Strategy in UK Food Retailing 1980-2002 Archived 2008-06-27 at the Wayback Machine , p.8
  8. "Argyll Group plc intends a stock buy back". Archived from the original on 18 July 2012. Retrieved 20 June 2020.