More intriguingly, the Nottingham GEM was purpose-built on the site of a former rubbish tip. The Crossgates GEM occupied a converted cinema, albeit one with an underground car park and an expansive upper floor devoted to the sale of non-food items. GEM Supercentre, West Bridgford, Nottingham, in 1973 (note extension, left) Lack of space limited the range of fruit and vegetables that could be sold. ft., had a meat counter but otherwise adopted a self-service format with 6ft. The sales floor, comprising about 3,000 sq. The upper-floor stockroom was connected to the loading bay by a conveyor belt and to the store by a manually-operated hoist. Since it had a stepped entrance, customers had to use baskets rather than trolleys. Like most urban supermarket conversions, the Castleford store was imperfect. They had opened their first ‘Asquith’ supermarket near the bus station in Pontefract in 1958, followed by more successful ‘Queens’ supermarkets in Castleford (a conversion of an old theatre/cinema) and Edlington (an indoor market hall). Peter and Fred Asquith had inherited a small chain of butchers’ shops from their father but were more interested in experimenting with supermarket retailing. In 1965 Associated Dairies acquired a majority stake in Asquith’s. Farm Stores and Craven Dairies kept going until 1973, when their staff were redeployed in Asda stores. The company had some retail experience, running chains of shops and cafés as Farm Stores, Bramhams and Craven Dairies, but its core business was the production and distribution of milk. Managed by Arthur Stockdale, it traded as wholesale and retail dairymen, café proprietors, pork butchers, bacon curers, provision retailers and farmers. It was in this context that Asda Stores Ltd was formed by the merger of two separate Yorkshire businesses: one rooted in dairy farming and the other in butchery.Īssociated Dairies & Farm Stores Ltd had been created in 1949, when Hindells Dairy Farmers Ltd and its subsidiaries merged with several other businesses. Inspired by American practice, some began to consider the potential of trading off-centre, despite the fact that few local authorities were prepared to countenance such a move. Food retailers found it difficult to secure suitable sites with access to parking, let alone space for free-standing buildings. Furthermore, their low roofs allowed the scarred party walls of their neighbours to be seen from the street. New-build supermarkets were often recessed behind the building line to create space for prams, stacks of baskets, or even trolleys. The ideal supermarket was ill-suited to an urban setting. Many supermarkets occupied converted redundant buildings, such as cinemas, but others were purpose-built in high-street locations. Small counter-service shops were gradually being superseded by self-service ‘supermarkets’, defined as having a minimum sales area of 2,000 sq. When Asda (capitalised as ASDA from 1985) came into being in 1965 the grocery and provisions trade was undergoing a radical transformation throughout the British Isles.
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