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Costcutter Supermarkets Group is a business based in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

primarily operating as a

symbol group A symbol group is a form of franchise of convenience shops, found primarily in the United Kingdom and Ireland. They do not own or operate shops, but act as suppliers to independent shops which then trade under a common banner. Unlike other form ...

supplier to various independently owned

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 ...

s and off-licences. It has operations in the

, the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. A ...

and

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

. It encompasses both

supermarkets A supermarket is a self-service shop offering a wide variety of food, beverages and household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earlier grocery stores, but is smaller and more limit ...

and convenience shops. As of December 2006, Costcutter (Ireland) was owned by James A. Barry and Co. The group owns the Costcutter, Mace, Supershop, and Simply Fresh brands.

History

Costcutter was founded in 1986, by

Colin Graves Colin James Graves (born 22 January 1948) is an English entrepreneur, known for founding the Costcutter chain of convenience stores. He was raised on a farm near Thorne, then in the West Riding of Yorkshire and attended Goole Grammar School. G ...

."Nisa's chairman to step down"
''Yorkshire Post'', 2 November 2006 As of November 2006, there were some 1,400 shops under the banner. In May 2006, the majority of shops were in the United Kingdom, with 120 shops in the

and 52 in

. A proposed merger with Nisa-Today's collapsed in November 2006, after concerns about a

cartel A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. Cartels are usually associations in the same sphere of business, and thus an alliance of rivals. Mos ...

. which were reported to the

Office of Fair Trading The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) was a non-ministerial government department of the United Kingdom, established by the Fair Trading Act 1973, which enforced both consumer protection and competition law, acting as the United Kingdom's economic ...

by members of Nisa-Today's, who opposed the merger. These claims were eventually proved to be unfounded and no action was taken by the OFT. Costcutter revived the

Kwik Save Kwik Save is a British convenience store chain. Prior to 2007, it was also a discount supermarket chain that had shops across the United Kingdom. It went into administration in July 2007, but was brought back in April 2012. Its shops were sm ...

brand in 2012, from a separate chain which had ceased trading. In 2018, The Co-Op Group made an offer of £15M in an attempt to take ownership of Costcutter. The bid was rejected, but it was believed that the door was left open for further talks. The Co-op subsequently became the sole supplier to the Costcutter group. In 2020, Costcutter built 20 pop-up stores in NHS hospitals, designed to help serve doctors and nurses who may have been unable to travel due to the Coronavirus. In December 2020, Costcutter was acquired by the wholesaler

Bestway Bestway Group is a British multinational conglomerate company based in London, England. It has its operations in United Kingdom and Pakistan. The group owns the UK's second-largest wholesaler serving 125,000 independent retailers and caterers ...

. The Co-op supply agreement continues.The Grocer https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/mergers-and-acquisitions/bestway-snaps-up-costcutter-for-undisclosed-fee/651624.article

References

External links

Costcutter website (UK)
{{Convenience stores in Europe Supermarkets of the United Kingdom Convenience stores of the United Kingdom Purchasing consortia Companies based in York Retail companies established in 1986 1986 establishments in the United Kingdom Supermarkets of Ireland Supermarkets of Poland Retail companies of the United Kingdom