SuperValu (Ireland)

SuperValu is a supermarket chain in Ireland, owned by the Musgraves wholesaler firm. Its headquarters is located in Cork and has stores both in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It also has shops in Spain.

Company structure

It is very similar in organisation to the SPAR and Londis chains of stores, in that the individual stores are owned on a franchise basis, with the store owners using standardised store layouts and brandings, and selling the same own brand products. However it differs from these chains in that SuperValu outlets tend to be significantly larger than the convenience store formats used by the other symbol groups, and the larger stores are on a par with the other full service supermarkets. In this regard, SuperValu regards its major competition as being Tesco Ireland, Dunnes Stores, EUROSPAR and Superquinn, rather than the other symbol groups. Owing to the success of SuperValu, Londis have branched out into supermarkets with their Londis Plus brand and SPAR have introduced their multinational brand EUROSPAR.

Products and services

Many Irish towns have a SuperValu store, and for many parts of the Republic, it is the only retail chain in the community.

A small number of SuperValu stores exist in Spain, owned by Musgrave's Dialsur subsidiary.

History

The company was founded in 1979 out of the larger outlets in Musgrave's VG chain (originally formed in 1960). The smaller VG stores became Centra. From a base of sixteen stores (mainly in Munster), SuperValu had 182 stores in the Republic of Ireland and 36 stores in Northern Ireland as of 2004. Along the way, Musgrave has pursued a policy of buying stores itself and then re-leasing them to franchisees, acquiring some of the bankrupt H Williams stores in 1987, L&N in 1995, and Wellworths (in Northern Ireland) in 1996.

Wellworths-Supervalu was a trading name used briefly by Musgrave following its acquisition of small-to-medium Wellworths outlets in 1996. This was to distinguish from larger Wellworths stores which were acquired by Safeway Stores (Ireland), a joint venture between Fitzwilton and Safeway (UK). In due course, the Wellworths name was entirely dropped.

Often if a franchisee decides to sell a supermarket, Musgrave will buy the franchise itself, operating the store as a company store until it can appoint a new franchise. This has tended to keep the chain intact and ensure the chain's further expansion.

ee also

Musgrave Group

External links

* [http://www.musgrave.ie/ Musgrave Corporate Website]
* [http://www.supervalu.ie/ Supervalu Website]