Wellworths was a

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earli ...

chain, owned by the

Fitzwilton Fitzwilton is a privately held investment company, today owned by Sir Anthony O'Reilly and his brother in law, Peter Goulandris, through Stoneworth Investment Ltd. It has been involved with many businesses in Ireland. History Fitzwilton was es ...

trading in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

until 1997. Along with Stewarts/Crazy Prices it was one of the two main supermarkets in Northern Ireland until English-based retailers moved into the marketplace.

History

Wellworths was split into three. Smaller stores were wholly acquired by the

Musgrave Group Musgrave Group Ltd. is an Irish food wholesaler, founded in Cork by the Musgrave brothers, Thomas and Stuart in 1876. It is currently Ireland's largest grocery distributor, with operations in Ireland and Spain with estimated annual sales of ove ...

in 1997 and traded as ''Wellworths-SuperValu'' for a time. The Wellworths name was eventually dropped and these stores now trade as ' Supervalu', part of an all-Ireland chain. Larger Wellworths stores were acquired by

Safeway Stores (Ireland) Safeway Stores (Ireland) was a supermarket chain that operated in Northern Ireland between 1996 and 2005. 12 of the 13 stores were acquired by Asda, itself owned by Walmart; whilst the remaining store was sold to Mr John Miskelly and Mrs Helen Mis ...

, a joint venture between

and

Safeway Safeway is an American supermarket chain founded by Marion Barton Skaggs in April 1915 in American Falls, Idaho. The chain provides grocery items, food and general merchandise and features a variety of specialty departments, such as bakery, d ...

. They operated from 1997 to 2005 under the Safeway name. Some other stores became a branch of

Marks and Spencer Marks and Spencer Group plc (commonly abbreviated to M&S and colloquially known as Marks's or Marks & Sparks) is a major British multinational retailer with headquarters in Paddington, London that specialises in selling clothing, beauty, home ...

and some other retail brands. In March 2004,

was acquired by

Morrisons Wm Morrison Supermarkets, trading as Morrisons, is the fifth largest supermarket chain in the United Kingdom. As of 2021, the company had 497 supermarkets across England, Wales and Scotland, as well as one in Gibraltar. The company is headqua ...

when Morrisons bought

. The Northern Ireland stores were not part of Morrisons' long-term strategy and traded under the Morrison name for a limited time. Despite continuing to trade as Safeway, own-brand products and carrier bags were supplied by Morrisons. Safeway Stores (Ireland) was acquired by

Asda Asda Stores Ltd. () (often styled as ASDA) is a British supermarket chain. It is headquartered in Leeds, England. The company was founded in 1949 when the Asquith family merged their retail business with the Associated Dairies company of York ...

in 2005 and now operates under the Asda name. Defunct retail companies of the United Kingdom Retail companies disestablished in 1997 Supermarkets of Northern Ireland Defunct supermarkets of the United Kingdom 1997 disestablishments in the United Kingdom Defunct companies of Northern Ireland {{retail-company-stub