Fitch Lovell

Fitch Lovell was a British food manufacturing, transportation, distribution and retail company that started life in 1784, and was finally merged into Booker Group in 1991 after they had purchased it in 1990 for £279.7 million.

Fitch Lovell started out in 1784, when James Fitch (1762–1818) opened a cheesemaking business in Leadenhall, London near to St Katherine Cree church, which since 1965 has hosted the Fitch Gardens (paid for by Fitch Lovell).

During the 19th century Fitch & Son grew from being a cheesemaker to become a producer and provider of many food products, from cheese to bacon. In 1839 it had premises in 66 Bishopgate, 83 Leadenhall and 98 Union Street, London, while in 1846 it had further premises in 33 New Glocuester Street in Hoxton, 9 Coalville Terrace in Chelsea and 11 High Street, Newington Butts. It held several Royal Warrants, had expanded to provide livestock auctioning and by 1878 was providing dairy products nationwide.

The company was incorporated as Fitch & Son Ltd in 1908, the same year that one of the families most famous members was born, the philanthropist Marc Fitch. In 1909 a fraud case was brought involving Fitch & Son at the Old Bailey. A former member of staff, Frederick Crocker, who had been dismissed by Edwin & Stanley Finch for reputedly using company funds to do his own business deals, was found guilty of purchasing lard from the Morris Beef Company using Fitch & Son paperwork and selling the goods on.

During the 1940s and 50s, the company grew further into different areas of the food industry. During the 1940s it purchased Hales Home Bakery (Cleveland) Ltd from its owner Frank Hales. This was followed up by purchasing Far Famed Cake Company in 1950 and the John Trent company, merging them to form Hales Trent Cakes in 1962. The company was sold in 1974 to J. Lyons and Co.

It also expanded into the butchery market, first buying Keevil and Keevil, a Smithfields meat seller, before buying the Layton & Burkett group in 1950, and expanding the business by purchasing several other London butcher chains. By 1958 it had 49 shops, and had purchased the West Butchers chain. This was in turn merged with the Gunner chain to form West Gunner (incorporated 1 June 1962) and had 250 shops. Fitch Lovell eventually sold the business to Vestey Group (Dewhurst) for £4m in 1984, although the chain now only had 100 stores.

During the 1960s Fitch Lovell opened its own supermarket chain, Key Markets, as they saw this as the future of food retailing, opening many stores in the south and east of England. They expanded the business by buying up several rivals. In 1965 they bought Barrow Stores (based in Birmingham), which had been started by John Cadbury in 1824, and was merged into Keymarkets in 1966. In 1972, they purchased the David Greig chain.

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