What type of ownership does asda have

Superstores Superstores are our most common format, accounting for a large majority of stores in our estate. Superstores offer a large fresh food offer and introduce a Pharmacy, Optician, larger George and non-food offers. Each store is planned specific to each location, tailoring local ranges. Supermarkets These are our smallest stores and are deployed across the UK, from Newquay to our most northerly store in Tain, Scotland. Our smallest store is Meanwood, Leeds, which is 3, sq. Our supermarket format focusses on food and convenience and offers essential non-food items.

Asda Living Asda Living stores are dedicated to George and non-food products, offering a range of George Home, Fashion and general merchandise to our customers. Petrol Filling Stations Our Petrol Filling Stations offer both pay-at-pump and pay-at-kiosk services, as well as a small convenience store that provides customers with a variety of food to go, and travel friendly products.

Launched in , George is now sold in over stores and through George. George, exclusively at Asda, has helped to lead the changing face of British fashion over the past two decades, and we are incredibly proud that our customers have helped us to become one of the largest fashion retailers in Britain. George has built up a reputation for quality, style and value.

We strive to save our customers money and to offer the best value, affordable and inspirational clothing for their family. As a business we recognise the importance of ethical sourcing and protecting the environment, and we always aim to do the right thing.

To meet our commitment, we employ a team of ethics specialists, both at our headquarters in the UK and on the ground in the countries where our clothes are produced to ensure continuous progress towards our goals, including monitoring results of independent audits. George Home launched in , focusing on the same pillars that have become synonymous with the George brand for over two decades - quality, style and value. Asda launched its Grocery Home Shopping in with a purely food focus.

Many UK supermarkets have also adopted the Ethical Trading Initiative, which deals more specifically with labour standards for more detail on this see Tesco profile, also ETI website www. However, some inspections only cover packhouses and not farms. Supermarkets often claim their supply chains are too complicated to find and inspect all the farms even though they keep reducing the number of farms they deal with another intrinsic problem with being a supermarket.

Even when inspections do take place, it seems they are often no more than token gestures involving checklists, with no involvement of workers and insufficient attention to the concerns of women and temporary workers. However, it refuses to disclose any factory names and addresses, making any independent monitoring of its practices very difficult. The National Labor Committee in the US did manage to track down a factory producing toys for export to Wal-Mart; none of the workers they spoke to were even aware that the company had a code of conduct.

Many workers and labour rights organisations feel uneasy about having a private firm doing this sort of monitoring rather than a locally-based NGO:. According to the report, workers are paid below the minimum wage, often paid late, refused some back wages if they quit, and forced to work excessively long hours and during national holidays.

Supermarkets are the only part of the supply chain to consistently make profits out of bananas. What they want to do is to drive everyone out of the market and and then to raise the prices. The people who supply WalMart are paying people starvation wages in Central America and Latin America in conditions that no civilised country would accept. WalMart behaves irresponsibly in the way it drives down prices without regard to the consequences.

We are very concerned about the price war on bananas. It has created a downward spiral that has put huge pressure on the producers. Supermarkets have long been criticised for destroying farming in the UK. This contrasts with the way it is portrayed by farmers in its supply chain. It should also be noted that farmers often do not want to comment about specific companies they dealwith for fear of retaliation, and for this reason it is often hard to get much information. In September Farmers for Action were considering blockading Asda depots around the country in response to the increasing difference between prices they are paid for milk and the high prices the supermarkets charge for it.

David Handley, chair of the group, said:. We are entitled to some of that. When the major supermarkets were bidding to take over Safeway, the Competition Commission conducted a survey in which they questioned supermarkets and their suppliers about how relations between them were going and what the effects of the Safeway takeover might be. It seems that Wal-Mart has been setting a bad example to other retailers and pressuring them to behave as badly as it does in a never-ending race for the lowest prices.

In response its competitors most notably Tesco had intensified the price and cost pressures they exerted on their suppliers both large and small. Since the acquision of Asda by Wal-Mart our negotiating power has been severely reduced and this in turn has had a cascading effect on our negotiating power with other supermarkets.

The acquisition of Asda by Wal-Mart has accelerated a trend of ever increasing pressure to provide additional services with costs inevitably borne by ourselves. There is less recognition of supplier needs within the Wal-Mart culture and significantly less emphasis on developing long-term trading relationships based on mutual benefit. The full report can be read at www. At Wal-Mart, we respect the individual rights of our associates and encourage them to express their ideas, comments and concerns.

Because we believe in maintaining an environment of open communications, we do not believe there is a need for third-party representation. It therefore has a powerful influence on American society. Through sub-standard wages, poor benefits and a lack of health insurance coverage, the company puts pressure on all aspects of society. Wal-Mart has become famous as a bad employer. The company policy of temporary employment means it does not have to care about the long term consequences of the way in which it treats its employees.

Management rules worked out by the company advise keeping an employee at work only if he or she can be fully used — if not the worker is asked to leave. If there is a job which needs more time than specified in a contract then the workers stay after hours without being paid. Wal-Mart is committed to spreading its anti-union, anti-worker operation to any country where it does business, regardless of national labor laws or international labor standards protecting the right of workers to organise.

Wal-Mart is highly suspicious of labour unions. To avoid formation of unions, Wal-Mart has created separate departments to make co-operation between workers more difficult. It also has a comprehensive management campaign of fear, intimidation, and firing. According to a company guidebook for supervisors:. Wal-Mart is anti unionization. Wal-Mart is involved in a variety of legal proceedings at any given time.

In February none of , employees belonged to a union. In January union leaders and human rights activists in the United States warned British people to avoid Wal-Mart.

It has no moral compass. It tours the world looking for workers willing to accept the lowest pay and the least benefits… What impact it will have on Safeway and Asda in the long run is very troubling. For a really vomit-inducing description of how Asda employees are asked to behave when at work, check out www.

Racial and gender discrimination Wal-Mart appears not to object to racial and gender discrimination practice in its stores, and this accounts for a considerable proportion of the many lawsuits brought against the company. A famous racial suit concerned the firing of a white woman who had a black boyfriend. The company is suspected of institutional racism. According to Bill Quinn Wal-Mart never develops its stores in predominantly minority areas. The majority of fruit pickers and packers and factory workers in developing countries are women, often migrants and immigrants, usually on short-term contracts or no contract at all.

For more detail on this see the Oxfam report Trading Away our Rights. During the s and early s, Associated Dairies had expanded the number of pork butchery shops under the Farm Stores fascia and had also created the Craven Dairies brand for its cake shops and cafes.

He went on to become the other co-founder of the future Asda, in a meeting that would change the way we shop forever. In search of inspiration, they travelled to the USA to visit Piggly Wiggly, probably the world's first supermarket. The trip was a revelation that led to a revolution in retail. At the same time, the Asquith brothers made an incredible discovery: the concept of food discounting.

The three then spent the next few days cutting off labels for redemption and offering the cans of soup at a 3d discount. The concept of food discounting and offering customers value for money had arrived. Customers loved the idea… and they still do!

Around the same time, the Asquith brothers pioneered late-night shopping on Fridays. It was a first in retail and, once again, customers loved it. Introducing Asda By the mids, Britain was starting to swing. Rationing was ten years in the past; the economy was booming; car ownership was growing; and there was shopping to be done. A great mood of optimism was sweeping the country, and nowhere more so than at Queens, where something very, very exciting was about to happen. Queens soon expanded to form a chain of self-service supermarkets.

It was around this time that Peter Asquith was also looking for a company to take over his in-store butchery operation, so he made contact with Noel Stockdale at Associated Dairies.

It was the beginning of a fantastic retail partnership. GEM and the arrival of Superstores. At this point the UK stores were struggling - too many staff, too few customers. To expand this new trading format, Peter Asquith introduced the very first discounted petrol filling station. Peter oversaw Asda's expansion into the south, with new stores opening in Newport, Plymouth and Gosport by Milton Keynes Supercentre The Bletchley, Milton Keynes Supercentre which opened in November is currently the largest Asda Supercentre with a net sales floor of over 11, m2 , sq ft.

There are three basic forms of business ownership: sole proprietorship, partnership and corporation. If you want sole or primary control of the business and its activities, a sole proprietorship or an LLC might be the best choice for you. You can negotiate such control in a partnership agreement as well.