40 Fun Facts About British Supermarkets

Tesco's name joins founder Jack Cohen's surname to the initials of T. E. Stockwell, who sold him which product?

Tea was the shipment Jack Cohen bought from Stockwell, and he printed labels joining the supplier's initials to the start of his own surname. The brand appeared in 1924, years before any shop carried it.

Which American retail giant outbid Kingfisher to buy the supermarket chain Asda in 1999, selling control in 2021?

Walmart paid £6.7 billion for Asda, its way into the British market. It sold control in 2021 to the Issa brothers and TDR Capital but kept a stake and a seat on the board.

Which employee-owned business, known for its department stores, has owned the Waitrose supermarket chain since 1937?

John Lewis took over Waitrose when the grocer had just ten shops and 160 staff. Its workers are called partners, which is why the supermarkets now trade as Waitrose & Partners.

The discount chains Aldi and Lidl, which both reached Britain in the 1990s, were founded in which country?

Germany is home to both discounters. Aldi grew out of a family shop in Essen, while Lidl took its name from a fruit wholesaler in Heilbronn, and the two are still each other's chief rivals.

Marks & Spencer took Aldi to the High Court in 2021 over Cuthbert, a cake it said copied which chocolate caterpillar?

Colin the Caterpillar has been sold by M&S since 1990, and it accused Aldi's cake of riding on his coat-tails. The two chains settled in 2022 for an undisclosed sum.

The founder of Sainsbury's opened his first shop in 1869 on which London street, known for its theatres?

Drury Lane was where John James Sainsbury and his wife Mary Ann set up shop at number 173. Their business went on to be Britain's largest grocery retailer for most of the 20th century.

Morrisons began in 1899 as an egg and butter stall in a market in which Yorkshire city?

Bradford was home to Rawson Market, where William Morrison set up his stall. His son Ken took over aged 21 and stayed for more than half a century, and the head office is still in the city.

The Co-op traces its roots to pioneers who opened a shop on Toad Lane in 1844 in which Lancashire town?

Rochdale was where the pioneers opened with little more than butter, sugar, flour and oatmeal. Their idea of handing a share of the profits back to shoppers became the model for co-operatives worldwide.

Which presenter hosted the original British version of the game show Supermarket Sweep from 1993 to 2001?

Dale Winton fronted the trolley dash for eight years and came back for a revival in 2007. Rylan Clark took over the tills when the show returned in 2019.

The 2013 scandal that saw Tesco pull burgers from its shelves began when tests found DNA from which animal?

Horse made up 29% of one Tesco Everyday Value burger tested by Irish food inspectors. Weeks later some Findus beef lasagnes turned out to be as much as 100% horsemeat.

Aldi's Christmas adverts have starred an animated character named Kevin since 2016; which vegetable is he?

Kevin the Carrot was launched as Aldi's answer to the lavish festive adverts made by a famous department store chain. He began a whole series of Christmas campaigns built around him.

Which celebrity chef was the public face of Sainsbury's advertising for more than a decade from 2000?

Jamie Oliver fronted Sainsbury's television and radio adverts and its in-store promotions until 2011, an eleven-year run for the chef.

Which ingredient did Marks & Spencer remove from every variety of its Percy Pig sweets by 2019?

Gelatine made from pork meant the original Percy Pigs really did contain pig. A vegetarian version arrived in 2011, and the whole range later switched to fruit pectin.

In 2018, Iceland became the first major UK supermarket to pledge to remove which ingredient from its own-brand food?

Palm oil was dropped by Iceland over the environmental damage linked to it. The chain then planned a Christmas advert about an orangutan on the same theme, which was refused clearance for television.

Iceland's founders were sacked by which high-street chain when it found out they had opened a frozen-food shop?

Woolworths ended Malcolm Walker's job once it discovered his sideline in Oswestry. In 2009 his supermarket chain bought 51 of the collapsed retailer's empty shops.

Which loyalty card did Tesco launch in 1995, giving shoppers a point for every pound they spent?

Clubcard was dismissed by a rival's boss as an electronic version of trading stamps. Eighteen months later that rival had to backtrack and bring out a loyalty card of its own.

Sainsbury's helped found which loyalty scheme in 2002 with Debenhams and Barclaycard, then bought it outright in 2018?

Nectar let shoppers pool points from several retailers on a single card. Sainsbury's later paid £60 million to take full control of the scheme and all of its customer data.

Large supermarkets in England must by law stay closed on Christmas Day and on which other day of the year?

Easter Sunday is the one Sunday of the year when big stores cannot open at all. On every other Sunday they are limited to six hours of trading between 10am and 6pm.

In 1980, Marks & Spencer became the first British supermarket chain to sell which lunchtime item ready-packaged?

Sandwiches went on sale in just five M&S shops at first. Within a decade the British sandwich industry was worth £1 billion.

Besides running food shops, the Co-op is also the United Kingdom's largest provider of which service?

Funerals are a core Co-op business alongside insurance and legal services. Its Funeralcare arm even runs the UK's largest coffin factory, turning out more than 100,000 a year.

Asda's name blends Associated Dairies with the surname of which family of Yorkshire butchers?

Asquith brothers Peter and Fred ran a small chain of shops that merged with Associated Dairies and Farm Stores in 1965. The Asquiths were bought out within four years.

Asda's George clothing range is named after George Davies, who had earlier founded which high-street fashion chain?

Next was built by George Davies in the 1980s before he created George at Asda. He then launched the Per Una range for Marks & Spencer, his third household name in clothing.

Marks & Spencer sold nearly all its goods until 2000 under which brand name, honouring one of its founders?

St Michael was introduced in 1928 by Simon Marks in honour of his father, who had started the firm from a market stall. Women's clothes carried a sister label, St Margaret, until 1950.

Netto, the discount supermarket chain that sold its British stores to Asda in 2010, comes from which country?

Denmark's Netto reached Britain in 1990 and sold up for £778 million. It came back in 2014 in a joint venture with Sainsbury's, but the stores closed again two years later.

Morrisons took over which far larger supermarket chain in 2004, a business set up in Britain by an American grocer?

Safeway had 479 shops when Morrisons, with only about 119, bought it for £3.3 billion. Converting the stores was the largest programme of its kind in British retail history.

The Co-op paid £1.57 billion in 2009 for which supermarket chain, rebranding its 900 stores by 2011?

Somerfield had itself swallowed the discounter Kwik Save in 1998. Buying it made the enlarged Co-op the fifth-largest food retailer in the UK.

Sainsbury's paid £1.4 billion in 2016 for Home Retail Group, bringing which catalogue shop chain into its supermarkets?

Argos came with the furniture retailer Habitat as part of the deal. Sainsbury's then set about fitting collection points for both into its larger shops.

Which online-only grocer was founded in 2000 by three former Goldman Sachs bankers and first sold Waitrose food?

Ocado dropped Waitrose in 2020 and switched to selling Marks & Spencer groceries, after M&S agreed to pay up to £750 million for half of its UK retail arm.

Waitrose stepped in during 2009 to rescue which struggling organic food brand, founded by the future King Charles III?

Duchy Originals began in 1990 as an outlet for organic food grown on the then prince's Highgrove estate, and its first product was an oaten biscuit. Waitrose agreed to stock the range exclusively.

Aldi opened its first British store in 1990 in Stechford, a suburb of which English city?

Birmingham saw Britain's first Aldi open in April 1990. That gave the discounter a four-year head start over its great rival Lidl, which did not arrive until 1994.

Aldi's name is short for a phrase pairing the word for discount with which surname of its two founding brothers?

Albrecht brothers Karl and Theo took over their mother's shop in Essen in 1946. They split the business into separate northern and southern halves in 1960 and coined the Aldi name two years later.

Tesco signed up in 1963 to give shoppers which trading stamps, later abandoning them for a price-cutting campaign?

Green Shield stamps were saved in books and swapped for gifts from a catalogue. Tesco became one of the scheme's biggest clients, and the stamps suffered badly when it walked away.

Which northern English supermarket chain, founded in Blackpool in 1847, has been called the Waitrose of the North?

Booths began when 19-year-old Edwin Booth opened a shop called the China House. Still owned by the family and staff, it later teamed up with its southern lookalike to form a joint buying group.

Marks & Spencer food shops can be found on the forecourts of which oil company's petrol stations?

BP forecourts carry the M&S convenience format, which launched in 2001 with its first two shops in Twickenham and Surbiton.

Jack Cohen started what became Tesco in 1919 with a stall selling war-surplus groceries in which part of London?

Hackney's Well Street Market was where Cohen, the son of Polish Jewish migrants, set up his stall. He did not open a shop under the famous name until 1931, in Burnt Oak.

Which Westminster council leader at the centre of the homes for votes scandal was the daughter of Tesco's founder?

Shirley Porter was born Shirley Cohen, heiress to Sir Jack Cohen. Her husband Leslie Porter joined the family firm too and became its chairman in 1973.

The Sainsbury supermarket family paid for a wing, opened in 1991, of which London art museum?

The National Gallery got its Sainsbury Wing thanks to a 1985 donation from three brothers of the family. The postmodern extension was built to house the Renaissance paintings.

Morrisons rescued which convenience shop chain from insolvency in 2022, turning its stores into Morrisons Daily?

McColl's already relied on Morrisons as its sole supplier under a deal struck in 2017. Every one of its stores had switched to the Morrisons Daily name by September 2024.

Which chef appeared alongside Delia Smith in Waitrose's adverts from 2010 and developed a food range for the chain?

Heston Blumenthal, of the Fat Duck restaurant, saw his 2010 Christmas pudding for the chain, with a whole candied orange hidden inside, sell out within weeks.

Asda has its headquarters in which Yorkshire city, where Marks & Spencer began as a market stall in 1884?

Leeds is where the future department store's founder set up a penny bazaar on Kirkgate Market with a borrowed £5. Netto also chose the city for its first British shop in 1990.