Somerfield (UK retailer)

Somerfield Stores Ltd

Former type	Private
Industry	Retail
Fate	Defunct - Purchased by Co-op Food operations and rebranded
Founded	1875
Defunct	2011
Headquarters	Bristol, England, UK (1875–2009) Manchester, England, UK (2009–11)
Products	Groceries
Revenue	£4.221 billion (2007 – 2008)
Net income	£226 million
Owner	The Co-operative Group
Number of employees	50,000
Parent	The Co-operative Food
Website	Corporate site Customer site

Somerfield (originally Gateway) was a chain of small to medium-sized supermarkets operating in the United Kingdom. The company also previously owned the Kwik Save chain of discount food stores. 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. The Somerfield name was phased out and replaced by the Co-operative brand in a rolling programme of store conversions ending in summer 2011.

The company has its origins in a Bristol-based grocer known as J H Mills which was founded in 1875 and which developed a self-service supermarket chain named Gateway Foodmarkets in 1960. During the early 1970s Gateway operated primarily in the south west of England with a few stores elsewhere. Ford and Lock stores and S&H Pink Stamp acquisitions took place during the period when loyalty stamps were prevalent and the first freezer centres were opened. Gateway Foodmarkets was taken over by the Linfood Holdings, a consortium which already owned the Frank Dee Supermarkets which operated over the north and east of England. At the time Frank Dee Supermarkets and the larger DEE Discount stores were a business larger than Gateway and had a chain of 79 supermarkets, in 1977. In 1983 Linfood Holdings was renamed the Dee Corporation. Initial plans were proposed to utilise the distribution depots on three main sites; the thriving Frank Dee's purpose built facilities in Anlaby and Billingham, and the existing Gateway warehousing site in Bristol.

Alec Monk, chief executive of the Dee Corporation, having escaped a takeover bid from Argyll Foods in 1981, decided to create his own supermarket empire. Three of the biggest acquisitions were of Key Markets from Fitch Lovell, International Stores, bought from British American Tobacco in 1984, and Fine Fare, bought from Associated British Foods the following year. The company also purchased the UK arm of the French retailer, Carrefour. By this time the Dee Corporation had over 1,100 stores and nearly 12% of the market, not far behind Sainsbury's and Tesco. Most of the Dee Corporation’s outlets were small, high-street stores. Monk argued that there was a future for well-run conventional supermarkets as well as the large out-of-town stores.