Fine Fare was the name of a chain of
supermarketA supermarket, a form of grocery store, is a self-service store offering a wide variety of food and household merchandise, organized into departments...
s in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
[In the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...]
. It was famous for its Yellow Pack budget
own-labelPrivate label products or services are typically those manufactured or provided by one company for offer under another company's brand. Private label goods and services are available in a wide range of industries from food to cosmetics to web hosting...
range.
History
The Company started as a single supermarket in
BrightonBrighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex on the south coast of Great Britain...
in 1956. It was one of a series of convenience store chains established in the 1950s, the others being
Premier and
Victor ValueVictor Value was a London-based supermarket group operating at the lower end of the grocery trade.Old Victor Value stores which survive can often be identified by their distinctive blue and white tiled frontage....
. By 1962 it had 200 shops.
The company was acquired by
Associated British FoodsAssociated British Foods plc is a British multinational food, ingredients and retail group with sales of £8.235 billion and over 96,000 employees in 44 countries. It is headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index...
in 1963. ABF appointed
James GulliverJames Gerald Gulliver CVO was the founder of Argyll Foods, one of the United Kingdom's largest retail businesses.-Career:...
to the post of Chairman of Fine Fare in 1967: he continued to lead the business until 1972.
In 1986, ABF sold the company to
The Dee CorporationSomerfield is a chain of small to medium sized supermarkets operating in the United Kingdom. The company was taken over by The Co-operative Group on 2 March 2009 in a £1.57 billion deal, creating the UK's fifth largest food retailer...
(nowadays known as
Somerfield). Following this, all Dee Corporation's newly-acquired stores were rebranded as
Gateway or closed, and the
Fine Fare name disappeared.
Operations
Depots were at
Welwyn Garden CityWelwyn Garden City is a town within the Welwyn Hatfield borough of Hertfordshire, England. It is located approximately from Charing Cross and approximately from the London Borough of Barnet and the London Borough of Enfield...
(
HertfordshireHertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford....
),
East KilbrideEast Kilbride is a large suburban town in the South Lanarkshire council area, in the West Central Lowlands of Scotland. Designated as Scotland's first new town in 1947, it forms part of the Greater Glasgow conurbation...
(
LanarkshireLanarkshire, officially the County of Lanark , was formerly a county of Scotland.It was bounded to the north by Stirlingshire and a detached portion of Dunbartonshire, to the northeast by Stirlingshire, West Lothian, to the east by Peeblesshire, to the southeast and south by Dumfriesshire, to the...
),
WashingtonWashington is a town in Tyne and Wear, England. Historically part of County Durham, it joined a new county in 1974 with the creation of Tyne and Wear. At that time, the UK Government placed Washington under the local government of the Borough of Sunderland...
(Tyne & Wear),
Cheadle HulmeCheadle Hulme is a suburban area of the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, in Greater Manchester, England. It is southwest of Stockport and southeast of the city of Manchester. It lies in the Ladybrook Valley on the Cheshire Plain, and the drift consists mostly of boulder clay, sands and gravels...
(
StockportStockport is a large town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on elevated ground on the River Mersey at the confluence of the rivers Goyt and Tame, southeast of the city of Manchester...
),
HucknallHucknall, formerly known as Hucknall Torkard, is a town in Nottinghamshire, England, in the district of Ashfield. The town was historically a centre for framework knitting and then for mining but is now a focus for other industries as well providing housing for workers in Nottingham...
(
NottinghamNottingham is a city and unitary authority area in the East Midlands region of the United Kingdom. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire, and is one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
),
TuffleyTuffley is one of the 15 wards associated with the City of Gloucester.The ward in non-parished and situated near Robinswood Hill toward the South of the City.The ward has many services, including schools, shops, and parks.-Origins:...
(
GloucesterGloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....
). Shoppers Paradise only depots were at
East KilbrideEast Kilbride is a large suburban town in the South Lanarkshire council area, in the West Central Lowlands of Scotland. Designated as Scotland's first new town in 1947, it forms part of the Greater Glasgow conurbation...
(
LanarkshireLanarkshire, officially the County of Lanark , was formerly a county of Scotland.It was bounded to the north by Stirlingshire and a detached portion of Dunbartonshire, to the northeast by Stirlingshire, West Lothian, to the east by Peeblesshire, to the southeast and south by Dumfriesshire, to the...
),
Weedon-Places:In England:*Weedon, Buckinghamshire*Weedon, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire*Weedon Bec, Northamptonshire*Weedon Lois, NorthamptonshireIn Canada:*Weedon, QuebecIn the United States:*Weedon Island, St...
(
NorthamptonNorthampton is a large market town and local government district in the East Midlands region of England. It is about north-west of London and around south-east of Birmingham, and lies on the River Nene...
),
StevenageStevenage is a town and district in Hertfordshire, England. It is to the east of junctions 7 and 8 of the A1, and is between Letchworth Garden City to the north, and Welwyn Garden City to the south....
(
HertfordshireHertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford....
) and
AltonAlton is a small market town in Hampshire, England, to the southwest of Farnham. It had a population of 16,584 at the 1991 census, and is administered by East Hampshire district council. It also is home to Treloar College, the National Specialist college for Young Disabled People...
(
HampshireHampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom, notable especially for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force. It borders Dorset, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Surrey, and West Sussex. It has an area of , with its widest points...
).
WashingtonWashington is a town in Tyne and Wear, England. Historically part of County Durham, it joined a new county in 1974 with the creation of Tyne and Wear. At that time, the UK Government placed Washington under the local government of the Borough of Sunderland...
also held stocks of non-food items for national distribution.
The Company conducted a short series of advertisements featuring actor
Gordon JacksonGordon Cameron Jackson, OBE was a Scottish Emmy Award-winning actor best remembered for his roles as the butler Angus Hudson in Upstairs, Downstairs and George Cowley, the head of CI5, in The Professionals....
(best known as
Mr HudsonAngus Hudson was a fictional character in the ITV drama Upstairs, Downstairs, portrayed by actor Gordon Jackson from 1971 until 1975. Hudson was the Scottish authoritarian butler of the Richard Bellamy Household, at 165 Eaton Place, Belgravia, London, England...
in
Upstairs, DownstairsUpstairs, Downstairs is a British drama television series set in a large townhouse in Edwardian, First World War and Inter-War London, that depicted the lives of the servants "downstairs" and their masters "upstairs"...
).
Fine Fare also owned the
Melias and
Shoppers Paradise chains of convenience stores.