Grace's Guide To British Industrial History

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Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 167,647 pages of information and 247,064 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 147,919 pages of information and 233,587 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

MacFisheries

From Graces Guide

Mac Fisheries was a retail chain of fishmongers

1917 William Lever (Baron Leverhulme) of Lever Brothers bought the Isle of Lewis, and the isles of North and South Harris in 1919.

He set up a company called MacFisheries

1919 Leverhulme saw the opportunity to sell fresh fish and opened the first MacFisheries shop (in England).

1920 MacFisheries acquired several food companies, notably T. Wall and Son, sausage makers, as part of Lever's intention to develop the fishing industry and improve the conditions of the crofter population of these isles[1].

1922 Established a restaurant subsidiary Delicura Ltd[2]

1922 MacFisheries was acquired by Lever Brothers.

A chain of fish shops was established by acquiring fishmongers throughout the country

1929 Became part of Unilever

1964 Set up MacMarkets, a supermarket operation

1970 Delicura Ltd was renamed Mac Mart Ltd

1979 Sold MacMarkets to International Stores

1980 The number of MacFisheries high street fresh fish shops had fallen to 55 (from a peak of 400); Unilever decided to close them because of change in the fish distribution to frozen fish; MacFisheries would continue its fish processing operation and wholesaling operations[3]

1985 MacFisheries operated a fish-processing plant at Fraserburgh. It was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Unilever which sold it to Clipper Seafoods of Aberdeen[4]

1986 The name of Mac Mart Ltd was changed to Mac Fisheries (B/gate) Ltd, fish merchants

1990 Mac Fisheries (B/gate) Ltd was a subsidiary of Geest plc.

1990 Geest merged its fish processing activities with those of Associated Fisheries as Macfish[5]


See Also

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Sources of Information

  1. Biography of William Hesketh Lever, ODNB [1]
  2. Companies house filing
  3. The Times May 2, 1980
  4. The Times Feb. 8, 1985
  5. The Times, March 25, 1992