Public company | |
Industry | Grocers & Supermarket chain |
Founded | 1870 |
Founder | Mary Greig |
Fate | Purchased initially by Wrensons, before being bought by Fitch Lovell and being merged into the Key Markets Supermarket chain. |
Headquarters | , England |
Area served | United Kingdom |
David Greig was initially a grocery store that grew to become one of the burgeoning supermarket chains in the United Kingdom. The original business was founded by the Greig family of Hornsey, North London. During the seventies, the business was first purchased by Wrensons, a Midlands-based grocery chain before the combined group took on the David Greig name. The combined company was purchased by British food conglomerate Fitch Lovell and was eventually merged into the group's supermarket chain Key Markets. [1]
The David Greig chain is considered to have been established in 1870, when the wife of a Hornsey cabinet maker of Scots birth, Mary Greig opened a small provisions shop at 32 High Street, Hornsey. [2] [3] [4] By 1881 her son David Greig had joined her in the business and described himself as a 'provision dealer' in the census of that year. [2] The business thrived and wishing to expand beyond Hornsey, Greig opened his first shop at 54-58 Atlantic Road, Brixton in 1888, [2] which he and his wife, Hannah Susan Deacock lived above. [5] Around 1890 a second shop was opened at nearby Loughborough Junction, near Brixton. This was probably the shop at 232 Coldharbour Lane where a wooden 'David Greig' fascia with 'Brilliant cut' gilded lettering in the distinctive serif typeface of the chain, was uncovered in 2020. [6] In 1895, David Greig was accused of selling margarine as butter. [7]
The company continued to expand with stores across the South of England, including Exmouth Market, London, Windsor, Basingstoke and Clacton. The company employed the services of architect Philip Woollatt Home to design the company's stores. In 1928 the company opened a new headquarters at 145 Waterloo Road, London, also called the Scotch House. [3] [8] [9] John and Mary Sainsbury having opened their first grocery shop in Holborn one year earlier and were initially friends. However, a deep personal rivalry developed between the two families, because of acrimonious feelings about the Greigs' alleged betrayal of a verbal agreement regarding the purchasing of sites for development. [3] In 1932, David Greig opened the first self-service service grocery store in the UK at Turnpike Lane, Hornsey, but the store although a success, was closed down after 8 months of the experiment. [10] [11]
In 1958, David Greig died at the age of 86, with his son David Ross Greig running the business. In 1962 the company merged with Colebrook & Co, a chain of butchers and fishmongers. [8] By the late 1960s, there were more than 220 Greig shops across the south of the country, all trading under the David Greig brand. [3] During the 60s, the company launched their own magazine for customers and were one of the pioneers of own brand goods using the Thistle brand. [12] [13] [14] [15] The company continued to be innovative when they were the first company to wrap butter in metallised cellulose wrap. [16] However, by 1971, the company had shrunk down to 134 stores with a turnover of £24 million. [1]
The company of Wrensons Stores was started in 1909 to take over the running of nine grocery stores in the Birmingham area. The company was listed on the Birmingham Stock Exchange in 1950, and by 1962 operated 120 stores across Birmingham. [17] [18] Wrensons by 1971 was a chain of small grocery stores serving the Midlands with approximately £5 million in turnover. The business was purchased by the Green brothers, Martin and Peter, in April 1972 for £700,000, whom had previously built up the Adsega supermarket chain and sold it to Tesco. Shortly after purchasing Wrensons, the Green brothers added the seventy store chain of Manchester-based grocers, T.Redmans. This was followed by the purchase of David Greig for £10 million in June of the same year, all backed by funding from Slater Walker. The Greig family had to sell the business due to the death of several family members and owing large death duties. The New Wrenson group was taken public in October, with the share prospectus stating that the combined group had 266 stores, which 66 were self service. [1] [3] [19] [20] [21] [22] The company had sold off Greig's freehold stores in Bromley, High Wycombe, Maidenhead, Ramsgate, Torquay and Plymouth for £1.9 million while the former headquarters at Waterloo Road was put on the market for £3.25 million. [8] In 1972 the combined company had lost £315,000. [23]
In 1973, the combined group formally changed its name from Wrensons to David Greig Ltd, but by the following year was subjected to take-over interest from retail conglomerate Combined English Stores. A fee of £12.5 million was agreed, but the shareholders of Combined English Stores withdrew support for the deal as there were validity questions over David Greig's projected trading figures. However, by April the board had accepted a £6 million bid from the food processing, wholesaling and retailing conglomerate Fitch Lovell. The deal was completed, and Fitch Lovell recouped half of the purchase price by selling stores for £3.4 million. By 1976 David Grieg Stores had shrunk down to 86, before being re-branded under Fitch Lovell's own chain Key Markets. [1] [8]
David Greig was a notable philanthropist, and, grateful for the education he received at the local parish school in Hornsey village, creating the David & Mary Grieg trust in 1933 for the benefit of Hornsey and the community. [3] These have contributed to the Greig City Academy in Hornsey.
A commemorative plaque has been placed on 32 Hornsey High Street, the site of the very first Greig shop. [24] The David Greig shop at 54-58 Atlantic Road, Brixton, is no longer a supermarket, but the frontage, containing a "DG" cypher, remains relatively original, and although the full name has been removed from the facade it is still visible in the mosaic floor outside the recessed shop entrance. [25] [26] Two well-preserved examples of David Greig shops have been listed Grade II by Historic England - firstly in 2000 the branch at 177 Streatham High Road (for listing description see: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1380345?section=official-listing) and later in 2017, No.65 Lordship Lane in East Dulwich both largely retain their authentic late 19th-century interiors. [27]
The old David Greig building at 23 St Georges Street Canterbury (now Superdrug) was designed by Robert Paine and Partners in 1952 and became a listed building in 1995 under the English Heritage building protection scheme. [28] There is an inscription on the wall, in memory of DAVID GREIG, founder and DAVID ROSS GREIG. When Superdrug refurbished the store in the 1990s and the marble replaced, a stonemason was employed to re-create the inscription. It can still be seen today.
Film of the Canterbury store from about 1955 is held in the collection of The Cinema Museum London Ref HM0355. There is another facility in Alcester (Warwickshire) in memory of his wife Hannah Susan. The current sports, arts and community facilities are called The Greig and are managed by the Hannah Susan Greig Memorial Company Limited. The family tableaux is located in Magpie Hall Lane cemetery, Bromley, London.ent. A David Greig shop sign was uncovered at No.257 Old Kent Road after the current occupiers carried out refurbishments in November 2019.
Jewel-Osco is a regional supermarket chain in the Chicago metropolitan area, headquartered in Itasca, a western suburb. In 2007, the company had 188 stores across northern, central, and western Illinois; eastern Iowa; and portions of northwest Indiana. Jewel-Osco has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Boise-based Albertsons since 1999. The company originally started as a door-to-door coffee delivery service before it expanded into delivering non-perishable groceries and later into grocery stores, and supermarkets. Prior to its 1984 acquisition by American Stores, Jewel evolved into a large multi-state holding company that operated several supermarket chains and other non-food retail chain stores located from coast to coast and had operated under several different brand names.
A supermarket is a self-service shop offering a wide variety of food, beverages and household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earlier grocery stores, but is smaller and more limited in the range of merchandise than a hypermarket or big-box market. In everyday United States usage, however, "grocery store" is often used to mean "supermarket".
A grocery store (AE), grocery shop (BE) or simply grocery is a foodservice retail store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, and is not used to refer to other types of stores that sell groceries. In the UK, shops that sell food are distinguished as grocers or grocery shops.
The Kroger Company, or simply Kroger, is an American retail company that operates supermarkets and multi-department stores throughout the United States.
Save A Lot Food Stores Ltd. is an American discount supermarket chain store headquartered in St. Ann, Missouri, in Greater St. Louis. It has about 900 independently owned and operated stores across 32 states in the United States with over $4 billion in annual sales.
T&T Supermarkets is a Canadian supermarket chain that sells primarily Asian foods, including fresh produce, meat, seafood, and Asian packaged goods. It also sells kitchenware and gifts, and has in-store kitchens and bakeries. T&T Supermarkets was founded in Vancouver in 1993 by Cindy Lee. It is currently led by CEO Tina Lee, who succeeded her mother in 2014. In 2009, T&T Supermarkets was acquired by Loblaw Companies Limited.
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.
A discount store or discounter offers a retail format in which products are sold at prices that are in principle lower than an actual or supposed "full retail price". Discounters rely on bulk purchasing and efficient distribution to keep down costs.
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.
GUS plc was a FTSE 100 retailing, manufacturing and financial conglomerate based in the United Kingdom. GUS was an abbreviation of Great Universal Stores, the company's name before 2001, while it was also known as the Glorious Gussies amongst stockbrokers. The company started out as Universal Stores, a mail order business created by the Rose family. In 1931, Isaac Wolfson joined the mail order company and would, through a series of takeovers, turn it into a retail, manufacturing and financial conglomerate, becoming Europe's biggest mail order firm and with over 2,700 physical stores. His son, Leonard Wolfson, followed him as chairman, to be succeeded by his nephews David Wolfson (1996–2000) and Victor Barnett (2000–2002). During the 1980s, the business divested much of its physical retail and manufacturing subsidiaries under Leonard Wolfson to concentrate on mail order, property and finance. In October 2006, the company was split into two separate companies: Experian which continues to exist, and Home Retail Group which was bought by Sainsbury's in 2016.
The Nash Finch Company was a Fortune 500 company based in Edina, Minnesota, United States. The company was involved in food distribution to private companies, primarily independent supermarkets, and military commissaries; and the operation of retail stores.
Vons is a supermarket chain owned by Albertsons, with most of its locations in Southern California and the Las Vegas Valley. It is headquartered in Fullerton, California, and operates stores under the Vons and Pavilions banners. It was owned by Safeway Inc. and headquartered in Arcadia, California, before that company was acquired by and folded into Albertsons along with all of their subsidiaries, including Vons.
Grand Union Supermarkets, later known as Grand Union Family Markets and often referred to simply as Grand Union, is an American chain of grocery stores that does business in upstate New York and Vermont, and used to do business throughout most of the northeastern United States. It operated stores in other areas of the country including the midwestern and southeastern states, and internationally in the Caribbean and Canada. The company was founded and headquartered in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and moved to Brooklyn, New York, in the early 20th century. Grand Union moved again to Elmwood Park, New Jersey and finally to Wayne, New Jersey before the company was forced into Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2001 and sold to C&S Wholesale Grocers.
Marsh Supermarkets was an American retail food chain headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, with a peak number of 86 stores in 2013 located throughout central Indiana and parts of western Ohio. Its eventual parent company was Sun Capital Partners, headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida.
The Giant Company is an American regional supermarket chain that operates in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia under the Giant and Martin's brands. It is a subsidiary of Ahold Delhaize, and headquartered in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. As of September 2020, the company operated 190 stores, 133 pharmacies, 105 fuel stations; the chain also provides online shopping and delivery to New Jersey through Giant Direct.
Hannaford is an American supermarket chain based in Scarborough, Maine. Founded in Portland, Maine, in 1883, Hannaford operates stores in New England and New York. The chain is now part of the Ahold Delhaize group based in the Netherlands, and is a sister company to formerly competing New England supermarket chain Stop & Shop.
Wright's Biscuits was established in 1790 as L Wright & Son, in South Shields. In the 1930s they implemented intensive factory methods for production and became a national supplier of biscuits and cakes, and a leading employer in Tyne and Wear. They also ran a large chain of grocery stores under various names, and controlled fellow grocery chain Moores Stores. The business became part of James Goldsmith's Cavenham Foods group in 1971.
Fitch Lovell was a British food manufacturing, transportation, distribution and retail conglomerate with origins dating back to 1784. The company was purchased by Booker Group in 1990 for £279.7 million and during 1991 the business was merged into its parent.
Barrow's Stores, also known as Barrow's, was an upmarket department store located in Birmingham, England.
Schwegmann Brothers Giant Supermarkets, commonly known as Schwegmann or colloquially Schwegmann's, is a defunct grocery store chain that served the New Orleans, Louisiana, metropolitan area and one location in Baton Rouge until 1997. The chain developed significant innovations in grocery retailing and influenced other big box retailers that emerged in the latter 20th century and early 21st century. The founder and chief executive of the modern version of the chain was John G. Schwegmann, although his uncle and grandfather ran predecessors to the modern chain.