Somerfield is bought out by The Co-Op

[Andrew]

The supermarket merry go round continues. What with all the mergers and takeovers over the past 10 years and the fact that every time many stores have to be sold off or are sold off as they aren't core business, practically every branch of a supermarket could have been any one of any of the other supermarkets in a previous life

Aren't some Somerfield's previously Kwik Saves? Did Somerfield buy some of the ex-Morrisons/Safeway stores (either before or after they were rebranded)? etc

[scottishtv]

Now, here's a bit of an anomoly.

Where there are Somerfield stores in parts of Central Scotland, they will change to become Co-ops (owned by the Co-operative Group) and could technically 'compete' with Scotmid (owned by the Scottish Midland Co-operative Society). Both sell food under the Co-op brand.

See http://business.scotsman.com/retail?articleid=4296358

Malcolm Brown, a spokesman for Scotmid, said: "Although we are totally independent from the Co-operative Group, we do get our food from the same supplier and have an excellent relationship with them."

--
Personally, I've never liked Scotmid since they shut down their 24hr shop near where I live. Now it's a Costcutter and shuts at 10pm. I miss my late night snacks...

[tillyoshea]

I have absolutely no respect for the supposedly "ethical" Co-op after their decision to downsize the British pint of milk to 500ml (and 2 pint bottles to 1 litre, etc) without any pro-rata reduction in price. It's a nasty, grubby little trick which relies on the fact that most of their customers won't notice and will just assume the bottle is a pint when they pick it off the shelf.

That certainly isn't the case at the Co-op here in Newcastle - I popped in today, and the milk was being sold in normal volumes - ie full pints. Perhaps they've reversed the decision?

[Ant]

Now, here's a bit of an anomoly.

Where there are Somerfield stores in parts of Central Scotland, they will change to become Co-ops (owned by the Co-operative Group) and could technically 'compete' with Scotmid (owned by the Scottish Midland Co-operative Society). Both sell food under the Co-op brand.

See http://business.scotsman.com/retail?articleid=4296358

Malcolm Brown, a spokesman for Scotmid, said: "Although we are totally independent from the Co-operative Group, we do get our food from the same supplier and have an excellent relationship with them."

--
Personally, I've never liked Scotmid since they shut down their 24hr shop near where I live. Now it's a Costcutter and shuts at 10pm. I miss my late night snacks...

I can never be bothered with Scotmid. The service in my local store is appalling. You go in for a loaf of bread and you can end up being in for about 10 minutes.

Good food though.

[tvmercia]

Now, here's a bit of an anomoly.

Where there are Somerfield stores in parts of Central Scotland, they will change to become Co-ops (owned by the Co-operative Group) and could technically 'compete' with Scotmid (owned by the Scottish Midland Co-operative Society). Both sell food under the Co-op brand.

See http://business.scotsman.com/retail?articleid=4296358

Malcolm Brown, a spokesman for Scotmid, said: "Although we are totally independent from the Co-operative Group, we do get our food from the same supplier and have an excellent relationship with them."

--
Personally, I've never liked Scotmid since they shut down their 24hr shop near where I live. Now it's a Costcutter and shuts at 10pm. I miss my late night snacks...

rather than an anomaly - this will be the case for great swathes of the country. CWS's heartland is the north of england. it would seem foolhardy to take on stores in regions where CWS have no presence as there is no scope for integration into existing infrastructure - and therefore little cost savings. certainly around here co-operative societies do not compete with each other - midlands co-op is east and north of birmingham, and midcounties co-op is south and west.

as i said earlier - when CWS purchased alldays, stores were sold onto independent regional societies, it'd be a shame if this was not the case in this instance.

[Gavin Scott]

Now, here's a bit of an anomoly.

Where there are Somerfield stores in parts of Central Scotland, they will change to become Co-ops (owned by the Co-operative Group) and could technically 'compete' with Scotmid (owned by the Scottish Midland Co-operative Society). Both sell food under the Co-op brand.

See http://business.scotsman.com/retail?articleid=4296358

Malcolm Brown, a spokesman for Scotmid, said: "Although we are totally independent from the Co-operative Group, we do get our food from the same supplier and have an excellent relationship with them."

--
Personally, I've never liked Scotmid since they shut down their 24hr shop near where I live. Now it's a Costcutter and shuts at 10pm. I miss my late night snacks...

I can never be bothered with Scotmid. The service in my local store is appalling. You go in for a loaf of bread and you can end up being in for about 10 minutes.

Good food though.

Which one is your local? The one at the top of Easter Road (my local) is abysmally slow. I've had to complain a couple of times that at the 5pm rush they have half a dozen staff filling shelves with one person serving at the kiosk.

The only redeeming feature (aside from being on my doorstep) is the server called "Willie". He's blonde, young (perhaps 20), polite and unspeakably cute. I actually get red-faced sometimes with how lovely he is.

I would ask him out if I had the nerve, however his mum also works there and she might attack me with a Deli France baguette.

[Ant]

Now, here's a bit of an anomoly.

Where there are Somerfield stores in parts of Central Scotland, they will change to become Co-ops (owned by the Co-operative Group) and could technically 'compete' with Scotmid (owned by the Scottish Midland Co-operative Society). Both sell food under the Co-op brand.

See http://business.scotsman.com/retail?articleid=4296358

Malcolm Brown, a spokesman for Scotmid, said: "Although we are totally independent from the Co-operative Group, we do get our food from the same supplier and have an excellent relationship with them."

--
Personally, I've never liked Scotmid since they shut down their 24hr shop near where I live. Now it's a Costcutter and shuts at 10pm. I miss my late night snacks...

I can never be bothered with Scotmid. The service in my local store is appalling. You go in for a loaf of bread and you can end up being in for about 10 minutes.

Good food though.

Which one is your local? The one at the top of Easter Road (my local) is abysmally slow. I've had to complain a couple of times that at the 5pm rush they have half a dozen staff filling shelves with one person serving at the kiosk.

The only redeeming feature (aside from being on my doorstep) is the server called "Willie". He's blonde, young (perhaps 20), polite and unspeakably cute. I actually get red-faced sometimes with how lovely he is.

I would ask him out if I had the nerve, however his mum also works there and she might attack me with a Deli France baguette.

To be honest it's any Scotmid branch in the Corstorphine area. I tend to avoid my one as often as possible due to the outside of the store being a local chav stop for Britain's youngest boozers.

[Gavin Scott]

Oh yes, Costorphine. I asked you that before, didn't I?

It seems to me that this is an ideal opportunity for Aldi to expand - something they have said they will do. What was it - one store a week over the next 12 months?

Having gotten over my Iceland snobbery and enjoying their low prices, maybe I would like to shop there.

[scottishtv]

It seems to me that this is an ideal opportunity for Aldi to expand - something they have said they will do. What was it - one store a week over the next 12 months?

Aldi do have major plans for Scotland - they built a big distribution centre in Livingston in anticipation.

There are a number of options in parts of Edinburgh for them, but they are being cautious at the moment following the council knocking back the proposed store at Chesser Avenue, despite making a number of concessions to the officials. They tend to like to build new or in gap sites rather than use existing buildings which can be part of the problem. I think the first 'inner city' Edinburgh store is planned for Commercial Street in Leith, which will be submitted for planning soon. Until then, you'll have to go to Musselburgh for your Sunday Special Buys... and also their very good biscuits and wine.

[Pete]

Oh dear. This just means one less big player in the grocery market, and that's bad news for consumers. Less choice, less competition, more of a stranglehold over suppliers, etc.

really? with somerfield, who's policy always seem to have been go into places with no competition and charge a fucking fortune. Cravendale milk, £1.50 in tesco, £1.70 in somerfield etc etc

Good riddence to them, however I'm rather interested to see what happens in kelso. our two main supermarkets are a co op and a somerfield, the former on the outskirts, the latter town center and has just had a (crap) revamp. plus with sainsburys now having permission for a site on the industrial estate which should be ready by 2010 i wonder what we'll be left with

[cwathen]

Although the Co-op plans to rebrand all the Somerfield stores it keeps, more than 100 of the 880 Somerfield outlets around the UK will probably have to be sold to larger rivals such as Tesco and Asda to satisfy the Office of Fair Trading's competition concerns. Morrisons along with upmarket chain Waitrose and frozen food grocer Iceland have also been tipped as potential interested buyers of individual stores.

Being forced to sell some of the stores I don't understand. Fair enough, the OFT will have concerns about competition. But with no exception I can think of, the only people interested in buying a supermarket will be another supermarket chain. And with Somerfield allready being one of the smaller players in this limited marketplace, why give the likes of Tesco and Sainsburys (who don't need to buy any cheap secondhand stores in order to expand) or Morrisons (who allready had a huge boost to their store count when they bought Safeway 4 years ago) an easy ride to growing even bigger?

Surely if Co-Op were able to buy Somerfield lock stock and barrel, retaining all the stores, then that would create a more level playing field and improve things for the consumer. As it is, co-op gets bigger but that's negated because everyone else gets bigger still, whilst there will now be one less player for all the chains to worry about. OFT intervention on this matter seems to benefit all of the major supermarket chains, with all of them having an easy expansion opportunity and enjoying less competition afterwords, yet the consumer could well get shat on from a great height.