David Sands was a

convenience shop A convenience store, convenience shop, corner store or corner shop is a small retail business that stocks a range of everyday items such as coffee, groceries, snack foods, confectionery, soft drinks, ice creams, tobacco products, lottery ticke ...

chain A chain is a serial assembly of connected pieces, called links, typically made of metal, with an overall character similar to that of a rope in that it is flexible and curved in compression but linear, rigid, and load-bearing in tension. A c ...

located in

Fife Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross (i ...

Kinross Kinross (, gd, Ceann Rois) is a burgh in Perth and Kinross, Scotland, around south of Perth and around northwest of Edinburgh. It is the traditional county town of the historic county of Kinross-shire. History Kinross's origins are connect ...

and

Perthshire Perthshire (locally: ; gd, Siorrachd Pheairt), officially the County of Perth, is a historic county and registration county in central Scotland. Geographically it extends from Strathmore in the east, to the Pass of Drumochter in the north, ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. At 200 years old, the family-owned enterprise had 28 outlets at its peak. According to a 2009 article on Business7, a publication of the ''

Scottish Daily Record The ''Daily Record'' is a national tabloid newspaper which is published online also based in Glasgow, Scotland. The newspaper is published Monday-Saturday while the website is updated on an hourly basis, seven days a week. The ''Records sist ...

'' and '' Sunday Mail'', the company was "a major employer across Fife and Perthshire." Its head office was located in Kinross. North Muirton shops (geograph 1969156)

On 10 January 2012 the company announced that it would be purchased by the

Co-operative Group Co-operative Group Limited, trading as Co-op, is a British consumer cooperative, consumer co-operative with a group of retail businesses including food retail, wholesale, e-pharmacy, insurance and legal services, and funeral care. The Co-op ...

., the sale was approved by the Office of Fair Trading in April 2012, and by December 2012 the last David Sands shop was converted to a Co-operative, bringing to an end the company's 200-year existence. In October 2013 David Sands himself announced the launch of his new brand "David's Kitchen" the in-shop concept, used in the previous David Sands shops, for fresh hand made produce. David's Kitchen will trade under the Nisa brand. The first shop will open on Caskieberran Road in Glenrothes. The site was a derelict Pub which was demolished, and David's Kitchen building a brand new purpose-built modern building.

History

The business was founded as a

grocery A grocery store ( AE), grocery shop ( BE) or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, an ...

in 1812 by Joseph Hardie. In 1846, the business was inherited by Hardie's nephew, David Sands. Sands had some difficulty finding among his sons a successor, but in 1920 the business passed to David Sands' son, Davee Sands. In 1966, Davee Sands' son David Lindsey took over the business, being joined in 1989 by his son David Sands. At that time, the business consisted of a single convenience shop in Kinross, but it soon expanded with additional outlets and services. By May 2006, it was a retail chain employing more than 450 people. In August 2008, at which point the enterprise had 26 outlets through Fife, Kinross and Perthshire, the chain brought in Ewen Chisholm as

chief operating officer A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the "C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if t ...

, expanding the management of the company beyond family for the first time.

References

{{convenience stores British companies established in 1812 Defunct retail companies of the United Kingdom Companies based in Perth and Kinross Convenience stores Retail companies established in 1812 1812 establishments in Scotland Defunct companies of Scotland