Budgens

History

The first Budgens store was opened in 1872, by John Budgen. The first stores were small local grocers, which expanded across the south of England.

In October 1997, Budgens acquired the 55 store UK network of 7-Eleven stores, re-branding them with the concept name 'B2'. Very soon afterwards it was clear that the name was not popular with customers and the 30 stores that were outside London began trading under the 'Budgens' fascia. The 'B2' branded stores in London were then changed to 'Budgens Express' before finally reverting to the 'Budgens' brand.

In 2002, the company was purchased by the Irish Musgrave Group. Two years later, they started selling their Budgens stores; the largest stores were disposed of on the open market with stores in places including Tadley and Mildenhall to larger store chains. Other stores were divested to independent retailers including Jempsons and Tout and CT Baker who continue to trade from them under the 'Budgens' name. Musgraves also franchised the Budgens brand, leading to more store openings in the independent sector and expanding the brand to many forecourt stores.

In 2007, the divestment of the original Budgens stores to independent retailers was completed, but as of March 2009 a few Budgens stores whose franchise-holders had failed to perform had been returned to Musgrave. A further eight stores were bought in 2009 from the Co-op (who had acquired them on taking over the Somerfield group but were instructed to dispose of them by the Office of Fair Trading).

In May 2015, Budgens' parent company Musgrave Group confirmed it had reached an agreement to sell Budgens and Londis for £40 million to the wholesaler Booker Group, subject to regulatory approval.

Stores

The stores range in size from around 140m² to around 1,200m², and therefore fall into the convenience store size range and the bottom end of the supermarket size range, as these two terms are used in the UK. According to retail analysts TNS Worldpanel, Budgens ranked 13th in the UK grocery sector in December 2004, with a market share of 0.4%.

The largest Budgens store is in the town of Holt, Norfolk, with just over 13,000 square feet/1,207m² after an upgrade in 2011.

The first two Scottish stores opened in July 2016, these were bought from the co-operative and had previously been Somerfield and Safeway stores. They are located in Paisley and Prestwick.

In 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2012, Budgens was voted fresh foods convenience retailer of the year in the company-owned sector at the Retail Industry Awards.

Corporate identity

Currently, there is no official record of previous corporate identities used by this company. As the supermarket concept developed in the UK in the 1950s, the appearance of the brand names developed as well and were designed to be colourful, eye-catching and distinctive. Budgens adopted a colour scheme during the late 1960s which incorporated orange as the base colour, very popular at the time. The stores were branded simply as 'Budgen', a progression from 'Budgen & Co. Ltd.', in a unique white font on the orange background.

A distinctive logo was also used for the 'Budgen' branding, which incorporated a tulip (symbolising freshness) depicted in orange and white on a brown rounded square background. The orange 'Budgen' corporate identity was used from c. 1968 to 1989.

Budgen was subsequently rebranded 'Budgens' from c. 1990 onwards. The orange gave way to a white background, the tulip logo disappeared and the font was changed to a handwriting-style scribble, in orange, underlined in green. There is as yet no record of this identity either, which was used until c. 1997, when the identity was altered again. A dark green colour scheme with 'Budgens' in white capital letters was introduced. This identity has again been replaced with a lighter two-tone green background, with the 'Budgens' device now depicted in a lower case font.