Past and Present
Past
Somerfield started life in 1875 as a small family grocery store in Bristol. In 1950 we became Gateway, merging with and acquiring a number of other brands including Keymarkets, Lennons, International Stores, Fine Fayre and Carrefour Hypermarkets. In 1994 Gateway Foodmarkets became Somerfield, and the brand was born.
In 1998 Somerfield merged with Kwik Save, forming the UK’s fifth largest supermarket. We maintained this relationship until 2006 when the decision was made to focus purely on the Somerfield fascia, at which time many Kwik Saves were converted to Somerfields and others sold to other operators. Throughout this transtionary period our commitment to the convenience market continued, and saw us acquiring 36 Aberness convenience stores, 118 Texaco forecourts and 22 Fuelforce sites in 2004 and 2005.
In 2005 Somerfield Plc was aqcuired by a private equity consortium, at which point the pace and volume of change to the business became very rapid and exciting. We continued to look for opportunities to grow the business and enhance it’s reputation for local, convenient, community retailing, in line with where we started over 125 years before.
Present
In 2008 that opportunity presented itself when Somerfield was approached by the Co-operative Group with a bid to buy the supermarket and make it part of their family of businesses. In 2009 the deal completed for a sum of £1.57 billion – not bad for a family grocers from Bristol! This transformational deal cements our position as the UK’s number one community retailer and puts us in a great market position going forward.
We are currently undergoing a period of rapid change as our stores are rebranded to the Co-operative Food fascia, our product ranges in store are harmonised, our promotions are synchronised and our support functions are migrated to the Co-operative’s Head Office in Manchester.
