BWG Foods UC is an Irish wholesaler and retail grocery franchise operator.
Superquinn was an Irish supermarket chain, founded in 1960 and entirely privately owned by the Quinn family. Select Retail Holdings, a property buying consortium, purchased the company from the Quinn family in 2005. A receiver was appointed to the company on 18 July 2011, and the following day the company was bought by Musgrave Group for an undisclosed sum. On 13 February 2014 all remaining units were rebranded as SuperValu.
SuperValu is a supermarket chain that operates throughout the island of Ireland. SuperValu is operated as a symbol group; each supermarket is independently owned, with individual owners using the SuperValu format and selling the chain's own brand products. SuperValu outlets tend to be larger than the convenience shop formats used by many other symbol group retailers such as Centra, Gala and Spar, and the larger SuperValu units are on a par with full-service supermarkets. Their main competitors are Dunnes Stores and Tesco.
SPAR, originally DESPAR, styled as DE SPAR, is a Dutch multinational franchise that provides branding, supplies and support services for independently owned and operated food retail stores. It was founded in the Netherlands in 1932, by Adriaan van Well, and as of 2022 consists of 13,996 stores in 48 countries.
A symbol group is a form of franchise of convenience shops, found primarily in the United Kingdom and Ireland. They do not own or operate shops, but act as suppliers to independent shops which then trade under a common banner.
Kwik Save is a British convenience store chain. Prior to 2007, it was also a discount supermarket chain that had shops across the United Kingdom. It went into administration in July 2007, but was brought back in April 2012. Its shops were small to medium-sized high street supermarkets, mainly located in areas with below average incomes.
Centra is a convenience shop chain that operates throughout Ireland. The chain operates as a symbol group owned by Musgrave Group, the food wholesaler, meaning the individual shops are all owned by individual franchisees.
Musgrave Group Ltd. is an Irish food wholesaler, founded in Cork by the Musgrave brothers, Thomas and Stuart in 1876. It is currently Ireland's largest grocery distributor, with operations in Ireland and Spain with estimated annual sales of over €4 billion. The current CEO is Noel Keeley. Today, the company is still largely-owned by the Musgrave family.
Costcutter is a chain of convenience shops, supermarkets and off-licences that operates in Ireland, Great Britain and Poland. The chain operates primarily as a symbol group and is owned by Barry Group in the Republic of Ireland and by Bestway in the United Kingdom.
In the Republic of Ireland, the retail sector provides one of the largest sources of employment in the economy, representing over 12% of the workforce. As of 2017, approximately 40,000 wholesale and retail businesses employed almost 280,000 people in Ireland, with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment reporting that 90% of these businesses were Irish-owned.
Alliance Boots was a multinational pharmacy-led health and beauty group with corporate headquarters in Bern, Switzerland and operational headquarters in Nottingham and Weybridge, United Kingdom.
Nisa Retail Limited is a groceries wholesaler operating in the United Kingdom. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Co-operative Group, though itself not a cooperative.
McLane is an American wholesale supply chain services company that distributes products to convenience stores, discount retailers, wholesale clubs, drug stores, military bases, fast-food restaurants, and casual dining restaurants throughout the United States. It is also a wholesale distributor of distilled beverages in some parts of the country.
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.
Palmer and Harvey plc was a UK-based wholesaler that serviced the multiples and convenience sectors.
Żabka Polska is a chain of convenience stores in Poland. There are at least 9,000 manned and unmanned stores across Poland, including at least 500 in Warsaw and over 340 in the Tricity area, as of April 2024. Some Żabka stores are located in the Czech Republic and owned by the Czech branch of the UK retail giant Tesco plc. The retail turnover was about €650 million in 2010. As of 2022, Żabka had more than 15.5 million customers.
Bargain Booze is a chain of off licence shops, that operates in the United Kingdom. Established in 1981 in Sandbach, it grew to 836 shops and established the Bargain Booze Select Convenience shop franchise.
Londis is a chain of convenience shop franchises operating in Ireland. The stores form a symbol group and are all owned on a franchise basis.
Freshmarket was a retail chain operated by Żabka Polska in Poland. There were 16 stores across Poland. The retail turnover was about EUR 330 million in 2014. The shops changed to Żabka by the end of 2019.
Bestway Wholesale Holdings Limited is a British food and drink wholesale business, founded in 1976 by Sir Anwar Pervez.
