I bought a few nice assorted old photos when we went to the Fleamarket at the Matford Centre in Exeter over Easter and this was one that caught my eye.

You see so many copies of similar photos of shops and businesses for sale that I couldn’t resist this original photo and a bonus to have the photographer stamped on the back, R. Laurence, Photographer, Milford Haven. Sadly I haven’t been able to find out any information about the Photographer, can anyone help, please?

Star Supply Stores.

Firstly I have to say that I came across a wonderful Blog written in 2017 about Star Supply Stores written by Kathryn A Morrison. Her site is called ‘Building Our Past‘ and here’s a direct link to the Blog post: Building Our Past

The following information on how the original stores developed and ended up as Co-operative Stores is from Wikipedia:

The business was founded in Manchester in 1873 by Joseph Cadman and James Fish as the Star Tea Company.
In 1922 the company, which by then had built up a chain of over 300 shops, bought Ridgways, a leading blender. In 1929 Star Supply Stores was acquired by International Tea Co. Stores.
International Tea Co. Stores was a leading chain of grocers based in London.
International’s main blenders were Ridgways, which became part of the group with the acquisition of Star Supply Stores in 1929.
Soon, most towns in Southern England had their own International Tea Co. store
The company was subsequently re-branded as International Stores and was acquired by BAT Industries in 1972.
In 1973, the Price Rite chain was purchased, adding stores to the International brand. This was further increased by the purchase of Wallis Supermarkets in 1977, which added a further 100 stores. After acquiring the large footprint of Mac Food Centres from Unilever’s closure of Mac Fisheries, in 1979, the chain created a new brand, Mainstop, to develop the new superstore division in 1980.

However, BAT decided to sell any business that failed to progress and so the company was sold off in chunks. Former Price Rite stores in the south of England were sold off in 1980 to Fine Fare, with the remaining 67 branches sold to Argyll Foods in 1982.

In 1984, International Stores was sold to the Dee Corporation. The company became the Gateway Corporation in 1988, and then Somerfield plc in 1994.

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 replaced by the Co-operative brand in a rolling programme of store conversions ending in the summer of 2011.

Fascinating to read how the supermarkets we know today developed from small beginnings and I have to say being older I actually remember most of those names of stores as I was growing up but I don’t remember the Star Supply Store, I’m not quite that old haha.

Do you recognise the shop above? Was it in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire? or somewhere nearby? Any information would be great, thank you!

Till next time then……….