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".
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.
J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is a British supermarket and the second-largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom.
Waitrose & Partners is a British supermarket chain, founded in 1904 as Waite, Rose & Taylor, later shortened to Waitrose. In 1937, it was acquired by the John Lewis Partnership, the UK's largest employee-owned business, which continues to operate the brand. The company's head offices are in Bracknell, Berkshire.
Tesco Ireland Limited is the Irish subsidiary of supermarket group Tesco. Tesco Ireland was formed by Tesco plc's 1997 purchase of the Irish retailing operations of Associated British Foods, namely Powers' Supermarkets Limited and its subsidiaries, trading as Quinnsworth and Crazy Prices. There are 152 Tesco stores in operation in Ireland as of August 2018. Tesco had approximately 21% of the Irish grocery market in 2021 and its main competitors are Dunnes Stores and SuperValu.
Sir Terence Patrick Leahy is a British businessman, previously the CEO of Tesco, the largest British retailer and the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues. In 2011, he became a senior advisor at private equity company Clayton Dubilier & Rice.
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.
Nigel Slater is an English food writer, journalist and broadcaster. He has written a column for The Observer Magazine for over a decade and is the principal writer for the Observer Food Monthly supplement. Prior to this, Slater was a food writer for Marie Claire for five years.
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.
Joanna Blythman is a British investigative food journalist and writer and a commentator on the British food chain who has covered subjects including salmon farming, supermarkets, intensive pineapple production, bird flu and the causes of obesity.
John Radford, born in Nottingham on 1 December 1946, died on 19 October 2012, was a British writer and broadcaster in the field of wine and food, with an emphasis on Spain. He was educated at Stamford School in Lincolnshire.
Criticism has been directed at Tesco from various groups, including national organisations, trade bodies, individuals, consumer groups and watchdogs, particularly since the early 2000s.
Ellie Harrison is a British artist known for her use of large quantities of data, collected through labour-intensive games, trials, systems and experiments, and, more recently, for her activist work campaigning for the re-nationalisation of Britain's railways and founder of Campaign to Bring Back British Rail. She is based in Glasgow, Scotland and in April 2013 was appointed Lecturer in Contemporary Art Practices at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design.
Co-op is a UK supermarket chain and the brand used for the food retail business of The Co-operative Group, one of the world’s largest consumer co-operatives. As the UK’s fifth largest food retailer, Co-op operates nearly 2,400 food stores. It also supplies products to over 6,000 other stores, including those run by independent co-operative societies, through its wholesale business, Nisa Retail Limited.
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.
Rose Prince is a food writer, author, cook and activist. She was the in-house cook at The Spectator magazine for seven years.
Dan Lepard is an Australian baker, food writer, photographer, television presenter and celebrity chef. He was previously a fashion photographer working for Italian Vogue before changing careers age 27, and is today known for reconciling historical methods with innovation in baking.
Jill Norman is a British editor and food writer. She published authors such as Elizabeth David for Penguin Books and then started writing books about food herself. In 2001 she published the 564-page New Penguin Cookery Book.
