Express Dairies is a subsidiary of Dairy Crest, specialising almost entirely in home deliveries of milk and other dairy products.
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The company was founded by George Barham in 1864 as the Express County Milk Supply Company,[1] named after the fact that they only used express trains to get their milk to London.
Post war, Britain was changing. The chairman's new son-in-law, American citizen and ex-US Navy sailor Patrick Galvani had been studying retailing before coming to the UK, particularly supermarkets. Galvani made a pitch to the board, which resulted in Britain's first supermarket opening in Streatham, South London in 1951 under the Premier Supermarket brand.[2] While the average British retailer was taking £98/week, the average take at Premier was £1,000/week. The company developed an estate footprint of similar 2,500 square feet (230 m2)+ retail outlets, all under the Premier Supermarkets brand. In 1960, in attempt to develop a national footprint, Galvani made a pitch to the board to buy northern based Irwin's 212 stores, but they refused to back him; Jack Cohen of Tesco subsequently bought the chain.[2] After Galvani resigned over a dispute to take Green Shield Stamps, in 1964 the chain was sold to Unilever's Mac Fisheries chain for £1million. The cash income allowed Express to develop and launch marketing for long-life milk.[3]
Acquired by Grand Metropolitan in 1969,[4] and sold again in 1991 to Northern Foods[5] who demerged it in 1998.[6]
A period of acquisition and disposal then occurred, where by it:
Following a period of poor profitability, it was acquired in 2003 by Arla Foods[7] who in turn sold it on to Dairy Crest in July 2006.[8] It still operates under the name Express Dairies.