The story
The first Budgens shop was opened in 1872, by John Budgen. The first few shops were small local grocery stores, which expanded across the south of England.
In October 1997, Budgens acquired the 57-shop network of the American 7-Eleven chain in the United Kingdom, re-branding them with the concept name 'B2'. By June 1998, it was clear that the name was not popular with customers and the 30 shops that were outside London began trading under the 'Budgens' fascia. The 'B2' branded shops in London were then changed to 'Budgens Express' before finally reverting to the 'Budgens' brand.
In June 2002, the company was purchased by the Irish Musgrave Group. Two years later, they started selling off Budgens shops; the largest shops were disposed of on the open market, with shops in places including Tadley and Mildenhall going to larger shop chains. Other shops were divested to independent retailers, including Jempsons & Tout and CT Baker, which continued as franchises under the 'Budgens' name. Musgrave Group also franchised the Budgens brand to new retailers, leading to more shop openings in the independent sector and expanding the brand to many petrol station forecourts.
In 2007, the divestment of the original Budgens shops to independent retailers was complete, although by March 2009, a few underperforming Budgens stores had been returned to Musgrave. A further eight stores were acquired in 2009 by a Budgens franchise partner from the Co-op, which had acquired them on taking over the Somerfield group, but was instructed to dispose of them by the Office of Fair Trading. These stores closed just eight months later. The former Co-op branch in New Invention near Willenhall, which was one of the stores acquired, has since reopened as an Aldi.
In May 2015, Musgrave Group confirmed that it had reached an agreement to sell Budgens and Londis for £40 million to the wholesaler Booker Group, subject to regulatory approval.
In January 2017 Tesco launched a takeover bid for Booker, including the Budgens fascia. This acquisition was completed in March 2018.
From Wikipedia’s article on Budgens, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4