Cavenham Foods
Encyclopedia
History
The Company was founded by Sir James GoldsmithJames Goldsmith
Sir James Michael "Jimmy" Goldsmith was an Anglo-French billionaire financier and tycoon. Towards the end of his life, he became a magazine publisher and a politician. In 1994, he was elected to represent France as a Member of the European Parliament and he subsequently founded the short-lived...
in 1965 when he bought up a series of bakeries.
In 1971 Cavenham acquired the Bovril Company
Bovril
Bovril is the trademarked name of a thick, salty meat extract, developed in the 1870s by John Lawson Johnston and sold in a distinctive, bulbous jar. It is made in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, owned and distributed by Unilever UK....
but then sold most of its diaries and South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
n operations to finance further take-overs. These take-overs came quickly and included Allied Suppliers
Home and Colonial Stores
Home & Colonial Stores was once one of the United Kingdom's largest retail chains. Its formation of a vast chain of retail stores in the late 1920s is seen as the first step in the development of a UK food retail market dominated by a small number of food multiples.-History:The business was founded...
(a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
supermarket business) for £86m in 1972, the Grand Union Company (an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
supermarket business) for £62m in 1973, Colonial Stores (another American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
supermarket business) for £133m in 1978 and J. Weingarten Inc. (also an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
supermarket business) in 1979.
Goldsmith divested most of his investments in the early 1980s. The main British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
part of the business, Allied Suppliers, went to Argyll Foods
Argyll Foods
Argyll Foods plc was a large supermarket operator in the United Kingdom. In 1987 it acquired Safeway Inc.'s UK subsidiary and in 1996 it changed its name to Safeway plc.-Early years:...
.