Associated British Foods: an 85-year history

Ryvita was acquired in 1949 and is today the UK category leader in crispbreads. Ryvita was the first business in what would become ABF’s Grocery division. Today, nine out of 10 UK households use our Grocery brands, which include well-known brands such as Jordans, Dorset Cereals, Kingsmill, Billington’s and Silver Spoon.

Garfield Weston placed a large majority of the Weston family’s shares in the business into a charitable foundation with the express objective of making the dividend proceeds from these shares available for charitable purposes. At the time, Garfield Weston wrote to his children saying: “Great wealth has great responsibility. It can destroy all those who have it, or if they wisely control it, I am sure it can bring great blessings in its distribution. We must seriously think about how we can do the most good with what we have to give away.” Today, the Foundation is one of the UK’s leading grant-making charitable institutions and is mainly funded by the dividends from Associated British Foods. By its 60th anniversary in 2019, the Foundation had given more than £1bn to a vast array of UK charities, large and small.

Building on acquisitions made in the 1950s, the grocery retail business gained momentum with the acquisition of Fine Fare, a British supermarket chain in 1963. This was the beginning of two retail paths: one which would see the grocery business become a significant player in the UK, and eventually the number one grocery retailer in Ireland and Northern Ireland with the Quinnsworth and Stewarts brands. The other path would see ABF move into clothing retailing in Ireland with the founding of Primark, in part built on experience in selling non-food products from its supermarkets and using the experience gained from building market-leading retailers in Quinnsworth and Stewarts. Over the years, as the Primark business became more successful, ABF began to focus on clothing and move out of supermarkets. Fine Fare was sold in 1986 to the Somerfield chain of supermarkets, the proceeds of which were used to expand into the attractive sugar industry with the acquisition of British Sugar five years later in 1991. The Irish supermarket businesses were sold to Tesco in 1997.

ABF financed the first Primark store in Mary Street, Dublin, trading as Penneys, based on the business idea and entrepreneurship of Arthur Ryan, Primark’s founder (pictured). Arthur Ryan had a vision to open an affordable clothing store after running the clothing department of food and clothing retailer, Dunne’s. This vision, combined with ABF’s financing and retail expertise, set Primark on the path to become one of the world’s foremost discount chains. During his 40-year tenure as Chief Executive, Arthur expanded Primark from that single store in Mary Street to 165 stores across six countries. In the process he made good, fashionable clothing accessible to millions of people. Primark still trades as Penneys in Ireland today.

To continue its diversification, ABF sought to build a foothold in the US, the largest food market in the world. Informed by the experience of expanding into the bakery ingredients market in the UK, ABF made an initial foray into the US market and completed a number of acquisitions of ingredients businesses, including ABITEC Corporation, an oleo-chemicals business and AC Humko, a refiner and blender of vegetable oils. These acquisitions would become the foundations for a broader participation in speciality ingredients for years to come.

AB Agri started life as a co-products business of British Sugar, when a team was tasked with turning the leftover pulp from the sugar into a nutritious animal feed product. It was spun out into a separate business unit in 1993 and through a series of successful M&A deals has grown to become the market leader in the UK compound animal feed business as well as operating a range of other animal nutrition businesses.

After successfully entering the US market a decade earlier, ABF began to expand into branded consumer businesses that would become the building blocks of the present day ACH, including Mazola in 2002, the leading corn oil in the US; Karo, a corn syrup business, and Argo corn starch, in 2003; and Fleischmann’s yeast business in 2004. Today, ACH also includes Capullo, a premium canola oil business in Mexico and Anthony’s Goods, a brand of high-quality, organic and natural specialty baking ingredients primarily sold online in the US.

Primark expanded its footprint within the UK by acquiring the store portfolio of the former Littlewoods group. This was one of the most significant steps in Primark’s growth story, enabling Primark to rapidly open stores in some of the UK’s most prominent high streets and increasing Primark’s retail space by 60%.

Primark’s initial store in Madrid, Spain, was the first store to be opened outside the UK and Ireland, marking the start of a successful international expansion. Today Primark operates across Ireland, the UK, Spain, Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, France, Italy, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Poland and the US.

Jordans, a producer of cereals and cereal bars created to offer healthy, natural products with a strong environmental ethos, was acquired in June 2008 and merged with Ryvita to expand the ‘better-for-you’ cereals and savoury snacks offering. This was followed by another cereal acquisition in 2014, Dorset Cereals, an award-winning producer of premium granola and muesli, renowned for the quality of ingredients, including wholegrain oats as well as fruits, nuts and seeds from around the world.

As part of its international expansion, Primark opened its first store in Boston, USA in 2015. From its origins in Dublin, this represented a huge milestone for Primark. The store opening was attended by the Mayor of Boston, Marty Walsh, who turned to Arthur Ryan, Primark’s founder, during the ceremony and asked, “Did you ever think you’d get to Boston?” to which Arthur replied, “I didn’t think we’d get to Cork.”

Since the opening of its first store in Mary Street, Dublin, Primark, known as Penneys in Ireland, has grown into an internationally renowned retail brand. We are famous for offering great value to customers and pride ourselves on our wide selection of products, from everyday essentials to the latest trends, and all at prices everyone can afford.

In 2021 Primark launched a wide-reaching sustainability strategy, Primark Cares, designed to reduce fashion waste, halve carbon emissions across its value chain and improve the lives of the people who make Primark’s products. The new strategy commits Primark to change the way its clothes are made without changing its affordable prices, enabling everyone to make more sustainable choices when shopping.