A moment of nostalgia with this picture from November 2004. It was taken at a time when every fifth or sixth car on the road was still a Rover, and the old Co-op had a poster promising “Somerfield Tokens accepted in this store today.”

Rover Group were living on the never never and were to go bankrupt early in 2005. At about the same time the old Co-op building was demolished.

The Somerfield supermarket has made less headlines than the Co-op. I do remember Gateway Foodstore being renamed as Somerfield. More recently Somerfield were the first supermarket I noticed giving out biodegradable carrier bags. Their SaverCard was stange, only SaverCard owners got most of the discount offers ( and some people got a SaverCard every time they shopped to get the discount).

Last year Somerfield was taken over by a consortium that has tried to simplify the business. It got rid of the SaverCard, and rebranded the Somerfield brand range as ‘Simply Value’, and relaunched the website shown here.

Here is the Belsky Mother and Child statue with Somerfields of Abingdon in the background. The shop carries on regardless, while elsewhere in the Somerfield company great mergers and sell-offs have happened:

• 1980s. Gateway acquire Keymarkets, Lennons, International Stores, Fine Fare and Carrefour Hypermarkets.
• 1994. Gateway renamed as Somerfield.
• 1998. Somerfield acquire Kwik Save.
• 2000. Somerfield sell off larger stores.
• 2004. Somerfield acquire 100+ Safeway stores
• 2005. Somerfield acquired by a consortium
• 2006. Somerfield sell off Kwik Save.
• 2006. Somerfield sell off underperforming stores (including some Kwik Saves that had been rebranded as Somerfields but only a sign and a splash of paint).