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Type | Private Employee Owned |
---|---|
Industry | |
Founded | 1925 |
Defunct | 2017 |
Headquarters | P&H House, 106–112 Davigdor Road, Hove, East Sussex , England |
Area served | United Kingdom |
Key people |
|
£34 million [ when? ][ citation needed ] | |
Number of employees | 3,400 [ citation needed ] |
Subsidiaries | Mace |
Website | www |
Palmer and Harvey plc (also known as P&H, formerly Palmer & Harvey McLane plc) was a UK-based wholesaler that serviced the multiples and convenience sectors.
Headquartered in Hove, East Sussex, and privately owned, it was the UK's largest delivered wholesaler, and the 5th largest private company in the UK. [1] It has an integrated national distribution network across 14 sites in the UK. The company was founded in 1925 as a traditional confectionery and tobacco wholesaler. Palmer and Harvey has been the UK's largest wholesaler working with a diverse range of 90,000 retailers.
On 28 November 2017, Palmer and Harvey fell into administration, with the immediate loss of 2,500 jobs, due in part to low profit margins and problems with working capital. A small number of staff were temporarily retained to assist in the orderly closure of the business. [1] [2]
Palmer and Harvey had four business platforms: Distribution, Multiple Retail, Independent Retail and Wholesale. Each is aimed at the needs of a broad client base, supplying customers with a range of produce from fresh sandwiches to shoelaces. [3]
Palmer and Harvey Wholesale and Distribution was the UK's largest wholesale distributor, supplying ambient, grocery, chilled and frozen foods, health and home products to a diverse range of retail outlets, including supermarkets, multiple forecourts and convenience store operators. Palmer and Harvey's customer base included Costcutter, Esso, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Welcome Break, Moto and the grocery multiples Tesco and Sainsbury's. The company had grown significantly in 1968 with the purchase of part of the loss making wholesaling business of Cavenham Foods. [4] [5]
The loss of the partnership distribution contract for convenience chain McColl's (MMRG) to Morrisons in 2017 brought about the collapse of the Palmer & Harvey into Administration. [6]
Palmer and Harvey owns WS Retail, a symbol group that operates under the Central Stores banner. The group is based in Ringwood, Hampshire.
Palmer and Harvey Direct Ltd offers more than 50,000 smaller retailers an opportunity to buy from a range of products through the direct-to-door van delivery services P&H Snacksdirect, P&H Sweetdirect and P&H Direct.
Palmer and Harvey underwent management buy outs in 2002 and 2008, the latter led by Chief Executive Chris Etherington in a deal which valued the business at £330m. The equity of Palmer and Harvey is held by current and former employees. Since 2008 almost £77 million was paid to senior employees before the company collapsed with debts of £65 million. Chris Etherington has faced calls to repay a £3.4 million loan he received from the company that would only normally be repayable if he sold his (now worthless) shares in the business. The failed company has a pension fund with a deficit of £80 million. The Sunday Times quoted PricewaterhouseCoopers as saying: “In line with their statutory responsibilities, the administrators will investigate the circumstances leading to the failure of the business in due course.” [7] [8] [9]
Alliance Healthcare, formerly Alliance UniChem, wholesales, distributes and retails pharmaceutical, surgical, medical, and healthcare products throughout Europe. The company supplies more than 110,000 pharmacies, doctors, health centres, and hospitals from over 288 distribution centres in 11 countries.
BWG Foods UC is an Irish wholesaler and retail grocery franchise operator.
SuperValu, Inc. was an American wholesaler and retailer of grocery products. The company, formerly headquartered in the Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, had been in business since 1926. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of United Natural Foods (UNFI).
Associated Wholesale Grocers, Inc. (AWG) is the United States's largest cooperative food wholesaler to independently owned supermarkets and grocery stores. It serves more than 4,000 locations in 36 states and from 8 full-line wholesale divisions. The consolidated run-rate sales for AWG is close to $10 billion. In addition to its cooperative wholesale operations, the company also operates subsidiary companies which provide certain real estate and supermarket development services, digital marketing services, and is a wholesale supply provider of health and beauty care, general merchandise, specialty/international foods and pharmaceutical supplies. It was founded in 1924 as Associated Grocers of Kansas City and was based in Kansas City, Missouri before moving to Kansas City, Kansas. Associated Wholesale Grocers distributes four private-label brands of grocery products, Best Choice, Clearly Organic, Always Save, and Superior Selections along with IGA.
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.
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.
Essendant, formerly known as United Stationers, is a national wholesale distributor of office supplies, with consolidated net sales of $5.3 billion. Essendant stocks over 160,000 items including traditional office products, office furniture, janitorial and break room supplies, and technology products. Essendant is headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois, and also has operations in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).
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.
Young's Seafood Ltd. is a British producer and distributor of frozen, fresh, and chilled seafood, supplying approximately 40% of all the fish eaten in the United Kingdom every year. It is headquartered in Grimsby, England.
McLane is an American wholesale supply chain services company which distributes grocery and non-food to convenience stores, discount retailers, wholesale clubs, drug stores, military bases, quick service restaurants, and casual dining restaurants throughout the United States. It is also a wholesale distributor of distilled spirits, wine, and beer in some US states. McLane is organised in three segments: grocery distribution, serving about 49,000 retail locations, foodservice distribution, catering to about 36,500 chain restaurants, and beverage distribution, servicing about 24,900 retail locations in the Southeastern US and Colorado.
Mace is a convenience shop symbol group operating as three separate entities with different ownerships in Great Britain, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The shops are independently owned and join the groups, paying a fee for marketing and branding support and purchasing their stock from the brand owners.
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.
Piggly Wiggly Carolina Co. was a franchise of the Piggly Wiggly chain of supermarkets, based in South Carolina in the United States. The company entered a process of disposal of assets and dissolution in 2014.
Cavenham Foods was a retail and food processing conglomerate started by Sir James Goldsmith in 1964, which would grow to become Europe's third largest food processor after Unilever and Nestlé.
Fleming Companies was founded as Lux Mercantile in Topeka, Kansas, in 1915 by O. A. Fleming, Gene Wilson and Samuel Lux. In 1921 the company's name was changed to Fleming-Wilson, and in 1941, the company name was changed to The Fleming Company, and Ned Fleming, son of O.A., was named president, chairman, and CEO. The company's IPO occurred in 1959, when 100,000 shares were offered. In 1981, R.D. Harrsion was elected Chairman and CEO of the company, with Dean Werries serving as President and COO. Starting in the 1960s, Fleming Companies began acquiring numerous grocery wholesalers and retailers, and it grew to become the nation's largest supplier of consumer packaged goods to U.S. retailers, serving approximately 50,000 retail locations. These locations included supermarkets such as IGA, convenience stores, supercenters, discount stores, concessions, limited assortment, drug, specialty, casinos, gift shops, military commissaries and exchanges and others. In the early 1990s, Fleming was the largest food wholesaler in the United States. The company served more than 3,500 supermarkets and other retail food stores in 42 states and the District of Columbia.
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.
Harvey Jacobson is a businessman and entrepreneur based in the North West of England. He is the executive chairman of the Jacobson Group, an independent supplier of footwear in the UK. Jacobson Group owns more than 75 shoe and clothing brands including Gola, Lotus, Ravel, Dunlop, Lonsdale and Frank Wright. In addition to the Jacobson Group, Jacobson also holds a range of personal business interests, from property development to international trade distribution.
The Grocers Supply Co., Inc. is a wholesale grocery distributor with its headquarters in the Southeast Houston district, Houston, Texas. As of 2011, it was the largest grocery wholesale company in the Southwest United States.
Londis is a symbol group in the United Kingdom with over 2,000 stores nationwide. Tesco owns the brand, following its 2018 purchase of Booker Group.
Bestway Wholesale Holdings Limited is the second largest food wholesaler in the UK. It trades from 62 warehouses and is a supply partner to over 70,000 independent retailers and 40,000 catering and foodservice operators. Bestway Wholesale also operates the Best-one symbol group which has 1,400 members throughout the country. Over 3,500 independents have chosen their depot-run promotional club, Xtra Local, as their retail club of choice. Bestway Wholesale is part of the Bestway Group.
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