23 Facts About Somerfield

Somerfield was a chain of small to medium-sized supermarkets operating in the United Kingdom.

Somerfield previously owned the Kwik Save chain of discount food stores.

Somerfield was taken over by the Co-operative Group on 2 March 2009 in a £1.

The Somerfield name was replaced by the Co-operative brand in a rolling programme of store conversions ending in summer 2011.

Somerfield purchased the UK arm of the French retailer, Carrefour when the French retailer exited Britain in the late 1980s.

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In 1996, Somerfield plc was floated on the stock market in an initial public offering, after the recovery had reached the point where flotation became feasible with a market value of around £600m, and the proceeds were used to repay banks that had lent to Isosceles.

Questions remained about whether, at a time of intense competition both from discounters and from the larger chains, Somerfield could generate adequate growth in sales and profits.

In 1997, the Somerfield website was launched, which gave customers access to viewing online content such as offers, services and recipes, as well as online shopping via the chain's free Home Delivery service.

The initial plan was to convert most of the Kwik Save stores to the Somerfield branding, but the group continued to suffer from a disparate store portfolio, the result of numerous ill-digested acquisitions by Kwik Save prior to the Somerfield takeover.

Somerfield admitted that the group had underestimated the difference between Somerfield and Kwik Save, and had failed to support and maintain the Kwik Save brand.

Original plan to transfer all Kwik Save stores to the Somerfield branding was quickly abandoned after it became clear that many outlets were not suitable for conversion, either due to size or location.

Somerfield launched a home shopping pilot in the Bristol area under the name Somerfield Direct in early 1999.

However, Somerfield suffered large losses in 2000, its home shopping venture was described as an "ill-fated foray", and development was halted that June.

Somerfield was the product of opportunistic acquisitions, driven more by financial engineering than by any conception of where the company should be positioned.

In October 2004, Somerfield acquired 114 Safeway Compact stores from Morrisons, which were subsequently re branded under the Somerfield name.

In September 2005, Somerfield announced its intention to appeal against the decision, a process delayed by a takeover bid for the chain.

Somerfield therefore had to proceed with sale of the 12 stores.

In 2005, Somerfield closed 22 of its 51 Scottish Kwik Save stores and rebranded the remainder under its own name, thus removing the Kwik Save brand from the marketplace north of the border.

Somerfield re-branded the 102 Kwik Save sites it had retained under its own name and a further 77 stores were sold to other retailers, thought to include Netto and Aldi, leaving the company to focus solely on the Somerfield brand.

In October 2006, it was revealed that 40 Somerfield stores, including many retained Kwik Save branches, had been sold.

Somerfield appointed Citigroup to manage the sale, and a preference to sell as a going concern rather than on a piecemeal basis was reported.

At one point in early 2007, Somerfield was briefly surpassed in size by Waitrose, and the independent grocers' distributor, Nisa, is comparable in size.

The Somerfield shop appeared on BBC's Top Gear, during an interview between actor Simon Pegg and host Jeremy Clarkson.