Also-ran of the aisles struggled to find a niche

The first UK branch of Safeway was opened in 1962 when the American owned Safeway group bought 11 British supermarkets. The group gradually expanded to a chain of 133 stores with sales of £2bn by 1987.

The big change came in 1987 when it was snapped up by Argyll, which had just suffered a defeat by Guinness in the bloody battle for control of Distillers.

Argyll had been formed in 1977 by three thrusting executives: Jimmy Gulliver, Sir Alistair Grant and David Webster. Together they had undertaken a series of takeovers including Oriel Foods and the Louis Edwards meat business. They also bought the Allied Supplies grocery business from Sir James Goldsmith and Amalgamated Distilled Products, a whisky maker. Now only Mr Webster survives of the three.

Argyll slimmed down until it consisted only of Safeway and the group changed its name to Safeway in 1996.

Since then its record has been patchy. It has been up for sale more times than Mr Webster would care to remember. He courted Asda in 1997 but the deal failed when it was leaked. A year later he wooed Sir Richard Greenbury of Marks & Spencer but M&S was concerned about expanding too far into the supermarket business.

Talks were reportedly held with Wal-Mart last year. J Sainsbury also talked about a joint bid for Safeway with Wal-Mart.

Mr Webster's masterstroke was to recruit a new chief executive in 1999. He hired a former Wal-Mart man, the Argentinean Carlos Criado-Perez, and what a difference he made. He introduced "guerrilla tactics" involving ever changing local promotions which rivals found hard to match. He added pizza making and fresh pasta counters, updated the format and improved product displays. Customers numbers grew, sales rose and profits did too.

Recently growth has become more pedestrian, but it looks like this is no longer Safeway's or Mr Webster's problem.