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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Lifestyle
Jess Molyneux

Greater Manchester's lost supermarkets we no longer see on the high street

Today, people across the region will head to the likes of Asda, Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and more to shop.

But decades ago, there were a number of other, well-established supermarkets that called our high streets home, before being consigned to retail history.

For some, these supermarkets were a place of work where colleagues became friends for life or where staff met their partners. For others, they remain part of our memories of experiencing a supermarket for the first time.

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Some of the businesses were acquired by other companies or saw massive chains take over their units. Here, we take a look back at the supermarkets we no longer see across Greater Manchester.

This is just a snapshot of brands lost to the past - so, if there's any we might have missed, let us know in the comments section.

Presto

Presto supermarket in Whitefield, Manchester, 1984 (Museum of Transport Greater Manchester)

With their bright packaging and advertisements, the Presto brand was instantly recognisable and massive in the 1960s to late 1980s.

But, by the late 1980s, many of the supermarkets had become Safeway stores.

The name was briefly revived, only to disappear for good in the late 1990s. M.E.N readers may remember the Presto branch in Whitefield, a site which is now home to a Morrisons.

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Fine Fare

Fine Fare supermarket at Cheetham Shopping Parade, Manchester (Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives)

Fine Fare started life as a convenience store in 1951 before growing into a chain of large supermarkets. The first branch opened in North London, and it wasn’t long before stores began popping up across the region.

Two branches opened in Manchester - in Cheetham Hill and Wythenshawe and in 1980, the supermarket introduced its Yellow Pack budget range, the very first of its kind.

In June 1986, Associated British Foods sold the Fine Fare brand to The Dee Corporation, the company which later became Somerfield, and all of the Fine Fare supermarkets were rebranded as Gateway or closed down completely.

Do you remember these supermarkets? Let us know in the comments section below.

Safeway

Inside a Safeway supermarket January 5, 1979 (Mirrorpix)

Founded in America in 1915, Safeway later expanded to UK branches - including a number across Greater Manchester, including at Shambles Square - at a time when it was unusual to see a supermarket in the city centre.

In November 2005, 43 years after Safeway opened its first UK supermarket, Morrisons completed its £3bn-acquisition, seeing more than 200 Safeway stores converted to the Morrisons format.

Lennon's

Cheetham Hill Road, Lennon's Supermarket, circa 1965 (Manchester Archives and Local History)

Lennon's dated back to 1900 when Mr Frank Lennon established his grocery and provisions businesses in St Helens.

Until the early 1950s, the family ran a small group of traditional style grocery shops., but in 1958, one of Frank's sons, Terence Lennon, paid a visit to America, was inspired by their style of grocery selling and, on his return, drew up plans for converting Lennon shops to self service.

Lennon's supermarkets were later opened in Manchester, Rochdale, Wigan, Levenshulme, Cheetham Hill and more, before the chain was bought out by the Dee Corporation, with branches rebranded as Gateway.

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Kwik Save

A Kwik Save supermarket (PA)

Kwik Save, with its familiar logo of white block italics against a red background, grew to become a common site in Britain after the first store opened in Rhyl in 1959.

The business adopted the model of successful continental supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl, buying a limited range of goods on favourable payment terms.

The chain continued to expand, and by the mid-1990s, there were more than 800 Kwik Save stores across Britain including the high streets of Greater Manchester.

With affordable items like broken biscuits, the store was primarily aimed at the discount end of the market and vanished from our high streets in the 00s.

Gateway

A Gateway Supermarket. October 20, 1988 (Mirrorpix)

Gateway was a familiar name in Greater Manchester for years. In June 1986, Associated British Foods sold the Fine Fare brand to The Dee Corporation, the company which later became Somerfield and all of the Fine Fare supermarkets were rebranded as Gateway or closed down completely.

By the mid-90s the Gateway name began to disappear, with a £200 million refurbishment program launched to convert the remaining Gateway Foodmarkets into Somerfield Stores. Somerfield was bought out by the Co-operative Group in 2008, beginning a process of converting branches into Co-operative supermarkets.

Netto

A Netto logo sits on display outside a Netto store (Freya Ingrid Morales/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Before budget supermarkets such as Aldi and Lidl became popular in the UK - there was Netto. First opened in Leeds in December 1990, Netto was part of the Danish company Salling Group.

The yellow and black discount shop was ahead of its time in many ways, but at the time of its peak trade, its bright yellow carrier bags left some kids mortified.

All the stores closed for good in the UK in August 2016, but the discount supermarket still operates in Denmark, Germany and Poland with over 1,400 stores.

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