Superquinn was an

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

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, founded in 1960 and entirely privately owned by the Quinn family. Select Retail Holdings, a property buying consortium, purchased the company from the Quinn family in 2005. A receiver was appointed to the company on 18 July 2011, and the following day the company was bought by

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 ...

for an undisclosed sum. On 13 February 2014 all remaining stores were rebranded as SuperValu.

Products and services

The company operated 20 supermarkets under the Superquinn brand and 4 convenience stores under the "Superquinn Select" brand. It had three levels of

own brand A private label, also called a private brand or private-label brand, is a brand owned by a company, offered by that company alongside and competing with brands from other businesses. A private-label brand is almost always offered exclusively by th ...

products of increasing quality; "Euro Shopper", "Superquinn" and "Superior Quality". In 2011, the Euroshopper brand was replaced by "Superquinn Essentials", their low cost, but still high quality, own brand products. Superquinn was known for having a very high level of customer service compared to other supermarket chains, its former owner having written a manual on customer service, Crowning the Customer". It was also known for having introduced a number of innovations, including Ireland's first supermarket

loyalty card A loyalty program is a marketing strategy designed to encourage customers to continue to shop at or use the services of a business associated with the program. Today, such programs cover most types of commerce, each having varying features and ...

in 1993, SuperClub re branded in 2007 as Reward Card. It also introduced self-scanning of goods by customers in a number of its outlets (Reward Card SuperScan). Superquinn was known as one of the better retail grocery companies to work for. Superquinn was part of an Irish Internet shopping portal Buy4Now, which provides Internet shopping services for a number of Irish

retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and t ...

ers.

History

Superquinn Supermarket, Walkinstown Road

The business was founded in 1960 as 'Quinns Supermarkets' in

Dundalk Dundalk ( ; ga, Dún Dealgan ), meaning "the fort of Dealgan", is the county town (the administrative centre) of County Louth, Ireland. The town is on the Castletown River, which flows into Dundalk Bay on the east coast of Ireland. It is h ...

Feargal Quinn Feargal Quinn (27 November 1936 – 24 April 2019) was an Irish businessman, politician and television personality. He founded the Superquinn supermarket chain and served as a Senator for the National University constituency from 1993 to 2016. ...

, and the company headquarters were later moved to

Sutton, Dublin Sutton ( ga, Cill Fhionntain – Fintan's cell or church) is a residential suburb on the Northside of Dublin, Ireland. It occupies the tombolo which links Howth Head to the mainland, some of the lower slopes of Howth Hill, and a little of the ...

. The trading name was subsequently changed to Superquinn, in part to differentiate it from rival

Quinnsworth Tesco Ireland is the Irish subsidiary of supermarket group Tesco. Tesco Ireland was formed by Tesco plc's 1997 purchase of the Irish retailing operations of Associated British Foods, namely Powers' Supermarkets Limited and its subsidiaries, tr ...

, which had started in the early 1970s. In 1970, the company name was legally registered and founded. In 1991, Feargal's son Eamonn Quinn took a key management role as deputy chairman. In January 2005, it was announced that Superquinn was to be sold to a company called Select Retail Holdings, consortium which had been formed in 2002. On 26 August 2005 it was announced that the sale had been completed. Simon Burke replaced Feargal Quinn as Executive

Chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

of the company, with Quinn becoming non-executive President of the business. Eamonn Quinn left the company. In January 2009, the company made the decision to close the Dundalk store. This was the second time Superquinn had failed in Dundalk, but in September 2010 a High Court order forced Superquinn to re-open in its home town again.

Expansion

In February 2007 Superquinn purchased the Montrose Hotel in Donnybrook from Jury's Doyle for €40 million and planned to develop the site as a supermarket and apartments. Superquinn expanded after the SRH takeover. It opened stores in Heuston South Quarter, Rathborne, Rathgar, Ranelagh and Portlaoise and planned to open a store in Clongriffin. In early 2010 it was confirmed that the Heuston South Quarter store was on schedule for a planned opening in October 2010, it opened on 14 October 2010. ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...

'' Home section reported in May 2010 that Superquinn Clongriffin was on hold, with Superquinn quoting that they were "not yet in a position to confirm a likely opening date for a store in Clongriffin". Residents of Clongriffin and surrounding neighbourhoods feared the planned opening would not transpire. On 3 September 2008, ''

The Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...

'' reported that a number of approaches had been made to buy Superquinn, including from

BWG Foods BWG Foods UC is an Irish wholesaler and retail grocery franchise operator. BWG is the second largest wholesaler in Ireland in terms of sales, after Musgrave Group, with sales of over €1.7 billion annually. It used to be owned by a consortium r ...

Limited, The Musgrave Group plc,

J Sainsbury J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company ...

plc, and Asda Stores Limited. However, later that day Simon Burke told

RTÉ News and Current Affairs (RTÉ) (; Irish for "Radio & Television of Ireland") is the national broadcaster of Ireland headquartered in Dublin. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on television, radio and online. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, while ...

that the company was not for sale. Superquinn opened its refurbished flagship store in Blackrock, Co Dublin in October 2012. The retailer invested over €2m in the layout of the store, including a complete overhaul of the fresh food section and an expansion of the fish counter, butchery, cheesemonger and parking spaces area. It had also completed work on Ballinter, Blanchardstown, Bray, Knocklyon, Northside, Ranelagh, Swords and Walkinstown.

Failed ventures

The company's innovations did not all become successful. One side effort of the company was the failed

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

''Tusa'' (the Irish word for

you In Modern English, ''you'' is the second-person pronoun. It is grammatically plural, and was historically used only for the dative case, but in most modern dialects is used for all cases and numbers. History ''You'' comes from the Proto- ...

in the

accusative The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...

case), a joint venture with TSB Bank (now part of

Permanent TSB Permanent TSB Group Holdings plc, formerly Irish Life and Permanent plc is a provider of personal financial services in Ireland. Irish Life Assurance plc and the Irish Permanent Building Society merged to form the Irish Life and Permanent Group ...

). A joint venture with

Texaco Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American Petroleum, oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its Gasoline, fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an Indepe ...

to introduce small Superquinn convenience stores at petrol forecourts, SuperQ, also failed. Perhaps more importantly for the company was its failure to expand - Superquinn had less than a third of the branches of its other full-service rivals,

Tesco Ireland Tesco Ireland is the Irish subsidiary of supermarket group Tesco. Tesco Ireland was formed by Tesco plc's 1997 purchase of the Irish retailing operations of Associated British Foods, namely Powers' Supermarkets Limited and its subsidiaries, tra ...

and

Dunnes Stores Dunnes Stores is an Irish multinational retail chain that primarily sells food, clothes and household wares. In addition to its main customer base in Ireland, the chain also has operations in Spain, and formerly in England and Scotland. The fo ...

, and was even eclipsed by discount stores

Aldi Aldi (stylised as ALDI) is the common company brand name of two German multinational family-owned discount supermarket chains operating over 10,000 stores in 20 countries. The chain was founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946, when t ...

and

Lidl Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG (; ) is a German international discount retailer chain that operates over 11,000 stores across Europe and the United States. Headquartered in Neckarsulm, Baden-Württemberg, the company belongs to the Schwarz Group, whi ...

, who have been very aggressive in acquiring sites compared to Superquinn. Its stores were heavily located in the

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

and

Leinster Leinster ( ; ga, Laighin or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, situated in the southeast and east of Ireland. The province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige. Following the 12th-century Norman invasion of Ir ...

areas (with 3 stores in

Munster Munster ( gle, an Mhumhain or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the south of Ireland. In early Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was one of the kingdoms of Gaelic Ireland ruled by a "king of over-kings" ( ga, rí ruirech). Following the ...

, and none at all in

Connacht Connacht ( ; ga, Connachta or ), is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the west of Ireland. Until the ninth century it consisted of several independent major Gaelic kingdoms (Uí Fiachrach, Uí Briúin, Uí Maine, Conmhaícne, and Delbhn ...

Ulster Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United King ...

) in contrast to the other operators which operate nationwide.

Receivership and sale

On 18 July 2011, it was announced that receivers had been appointed to the Superquinn chain. This was triggered by a

consortium A consortium (plural: consortia) is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for ...

of banks believed to be owed around €400m. On 19 July 2011, the chain was reported to have been sold to wholesale group

for just over €100m. Staff were informed that there would be no change to their terms and conditions, or their pensions under the takeover by Musgrave. The ''Irish Times'' reported on 23 July 2011 that two high court actions had been initiated to challenge the

receivership In law, receivership is a situation in which an institution or enterprise is held by a receiver—a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights"—especially in ca ...

and instead place the business in

examinership Examinership is a process in Irish law whereby the protection of the Court is obtained to assist the survival of a company. It allows a company to restructure with the approval of the High Court. To obtain the appointment of an examiner it i ...

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

n VP Group was named as a possible bidder for the company. On 27 July 2011,

RTÉ (RTÉ) (; Irish language, Irish for "Radio & Television of Ireland") is the Public broadcaster, national broadcaster of Republic of Ireland, Ireland headquartered in Dublin. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on RTÉ Television, telev ...

reported that the petition for examinership had been withdrawn, allowing the proposed buyout to proceed. Musgrave provided a €10 million fund to benefit suppliers owed money by Superquinn. The Superquinn name disappeared from Ireland's main streets on 13 February 2014 after owner, the Musgrave Group, announced its decision to rebrand all stores as SuperValu. The SuperQuinn brand has been retained for a range of products, including sausages.

References