Local Plus was the trading name of a group of sixty four convenience stores trading in the South West of England, owned by Conveco Ltd, which was formed when three Alldays Regional Development companies were bought in a management buyout in 2001. In May 2004, the group was subsequently brought by the

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

History

Conveco Limited was the group name but was in fact split into three smaller trading companies. Plymouth and Cornwall Convenience Stores Limited, Devon and Cornwall Convenience Stores Limited and Somerset and Bristol Convenience Stores Limited Conveco was formed by a management buy out of the Alldays South West stores in 2001 by Allen Hutchby, Richard Tipper and Greg Gardener. The stores they acquired from Alldays were then rebranded to Local Plus, and supplied by Nisa. In November 2001, Conveco acquired four stores of Spar in cornwall, then a further two a year later. These stores continued to trade and be supplied by Spar. Conveco operated a total sixty four stores in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Bristol. The head office was located at the store in Long Ashton in Bristol. In 2003 new management was brought in, to turn around the companies fortunes. The original CEO left, and trouble shooter Tony O'Neill was brought in."Troubleshooter O'neill must shake up conveco"
/ref> Subsequently, Conveco signed a new distribution deal with Spar, which saw the stores being supplied by Appleby Westward Limited in Saltash, Cornwall. Over the coming months most of the stores had their Local Plus fascias replaced with

Spar SPAR, originally DESPAR, styled as DE SPAR, is a Dutch multinational that provides branding, supplies and support services for independently owned and operated food retail stores. It was founded in the Netherlands in 1932, by Adriaan van Well, ...

fascias. In the beginning of 2004, it was announced that the Co-operative Group had purchased Conveco outright. Co-op continued to trade the stores as Spar for a further six months, due to contracts that Conveco had signed with them. After this, the Conveco estate of stores was split up, with all the Plymouth and South Devon stores being sold on to the Plymouth & South West Co-operative Society, and the rest retained by the Co-operative Group which now trade under the Co-op ''Welcome'' fascia.

References

Convenience stores Defunct retail companies of the United Kingdom Supermarkets of the United Kingdom {{retail-company-stub