Tesco plc is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. The company was founded by Jack Cohen in Hackney, London, in 1919. In 2011, it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in the world measured by revenues. It has shops in Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia. It is the market leader of groceries in the UK.
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. Safeway-branded shops disappeared from the United Kingdom on 24 November 2005.
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.
J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is a British supermarket and the second-largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom.
William Low & Co plc, popularly referred to as Willie Low's and latterly marketed as Wm Low, was a chain of supermarkets headquartered in Dundee, Scotland. Initially founded in 1868, Low's had branches throughout Scotland, North East England, Cumbria and Yorkshire. As a group, it was smaller than most of its competitors and often served small towns, although it still had several large hypermarkets. Low's use to trade on their Scottishness as a unique selling point in Scotland. At one stage, the company also ran a chain of frozen food stores known as Lowfreeze. Lowfreeze was sold in 1987 to Bejam.
Netto is a Danish discount supermarket brand operating in Denmark, Germany and Poland. Netto is a part Salling Group.
HHGL Limited, trading as Homebase, is a British home improvement retailer and garden centre with stores across the United Kingdom and Ireland. Founded by Sainsbury's and GB-Inno-BM in 1979, the company was owned by Home Retail Group from October 2006, until it was sold to the Australian conglomerate Wesfarmers in January 2016.
Argos Limited is a British retailer operating in the United Kingdom online and through catalogues, and formerly in Ireland; it was acquired by Sainsbury's supermarket chain in 2016. It was established in November 1972 and is named after the Greek city of Argos. The company trades both through physical shops and online, with 29 million yearly shop customers, and nearly a billion online visitors per annum. It has also franchised overseas to countries such as China.
Tesco Personal Finance plc, trading as Tesco Bank, is a British retail bank which was formed in July 1997. The bank was formed as part of a 50:50 joint venture between The Royal Bank of Scotland and Tesco, the largest supermarket in the United Kingdom, employing 2,800 people.
Habitat is a brand of household furnishings in the United Kingdom and the main homewares brand within the Sainsbury's group.
Sprucefield is a major out-of-town retail park in the townland of Magherageery, County Down, Northern Ireland. It is on the southern edge of Lisburn; about one mile from Lisburn city centre, and ten miles (16 km) from central Belfast. Sprucefield is located beside the M1 motorway and the A1 road. It is split in two parts: the Sprucefield Centre and Sprucefield Park.
Wyevale Garden Centres was a British chain of garden centres.
Fine Fare was a chain of supermarkets which operated in the United Kingdom from 1951 until 1988. During the 1960s the company was the largest operator of supermarkets in Europe. Their Yellow Pack budget own-label range, introduced in 1980, was the first own brand basic range to be introduced in the UK and in 1983 it was the first British supermarket to sell organic food. The business for the majority of its existence was owned by companies controlled by Garfield Weston and his family, but were sold in 1986 to the Dee Corporation, operators of Gateway Foodmarkets with the stores being rebranded.
Shoprite Limited was a community food store chain in the Isle of Man. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Isle of Man Enterprises plc, until Tesco announced its purchase of the business on 9 October 2023.
Sainsbury's Local is a chain of 820 convenience shops operated by the UK's second largest supermarket chain Sainsbury's.
SavaCentre was a chain of 13 hypermarkets and later a further seven discount supermarkets owned and operated jointly by Sainsbury's and BHS, beginning in 1977. Sainsbury's later took full control of the stores alone in 1989, rebranding them as Sainsbury's SavaCentre, until 2005 when the stores were integrated into the Sainsbury's supermarket brand. The hypermarket stores ranged in size from 66,000 sq ft (6,100 m2) to 117,000 sq ft (10,900 m2) and the discount supermarkets ranged in size from 31,000 sq ft (2,900 m2) to 70,000 sq ft (6,500 m2). At the time of its inception, it was the only dedicated hypermarket chain in the UK.
A dark store is a retail outlet or distribution centre that exists exclusively for online shopping. A dark store is generally a large warehouse that can either be used to facilitate a "click-and-collect" service, where a customer collects an item they have ordered online, or as an order fulfillment platform for online sales. The format was initiated in the United Kingdom, and its popularity has also spread to France followed by the rest of the European Union and Russia, as well as to the United States.
Tesco has expanded its operations from the United Kingdom to 11 other countries. Tesco pulled out of the United States in 2013, but continues to see growth elsewhere. Tesco's international expansion strategy has responded to the need to be sensitive to local expectations in other countries by entering into joint ventures with local partners, such as Samsung Group in South Korea, and Charoen Pokphand in Thailand, appointing a very high proportion of local personnel to management positions. It also makes small acquisitions as part of its strategy: for example, in its 2005/2006 financial year it made acquisitions in South Korea, one in Poland and one in Japan.
