Safeway (UK)

Safeway Limited is a British groceries brand, and former chain of supermarkets and convenience shops. The British Safeway was founded in 1962 by the American Safeway Inc., before being sold to Argyll Foods in 1987. It was purchased by Morrisons in March 2004. Most of its 479 shops were rebranded as Morrisons, with others being sold. Safeway-branded shops disappeared from the United Kingdom on 24 November 2005.

In November 2016, Morrisons revived the Safeway brand for a range of products, manufactured in the company's own factories, for distribution through UK independent retailers.

Safeway Food Stores was established in 1962 in the United Kingdom by the American supermarket chain Safeway, with seven supermarkets and a few smaller stores in Greater London, and its first purpose-built store was opened in Bedford in 1963. It brought many ideas from the US, including larger stores with wider aisles and delicatessens, and a much wider range of products. By 1987, it had 133 shops around the United Kingdom.

In 1987, Safeway Inc. put Safeway Food Stores up for sale. Argyll Foods eventually secured it for the sum of £681 million, with £600 million raised through a rights issue that was three times oversubscribed.

Argyll then began converting the larger Presto supermarkets to the Safeway brand. The Presto name continued on smaller supermarkets in North East England and Scotland for several years and even enjoyed a brief revival in the early 1990s, when several new Presto shops began to open and a range of Presto own label products was introduced. The last new Presto shops opened in 1995. The revival was short lived, as in 1995, many smaller Presto shops were sold to a consortium of SPAR retailers.

Over the next few years, competitive pressures intensified. Pre tax profits fell by 13% during the year ended 30 April 1994, prompting a wide-ranging strategic review known as "Safeway 2000", led by the then chief executive, Colin Smith, with assistance from McKinsey Consulting. This involved the sale of the Lo-Cost chain to Co-operative Retail Services and the redesign of Safeway shops to appeal to the family shopper.

In July 1996, Argyll conducted a share buyback and renamed itself Safeway plc. During 1997, several Presto stores were converted to Safeways, and by the beginning of 1998, the final Presto shops were either converted or closed down.

David Webster, who had taken over as chairman in 1997, after the retirement of Alistair Grant, decided to open merger talks with Asda. These talks were called off after a few weeks following a leak to a Sunday newspaper, and then briefly revived in the early months of 1998, before breaking down again.