Asda, one of the UK’s best-loved supermarkets famous for its bright green branding, ‘rollback’ prices and beloved ‘pocket tap’, is celebrating its 60th anniversary this month.
As the UK’s third-largest food retailer with more than 1,200 stores and 145,000 employees nationwide, the supermarket is equally cherished for its George clothing range – currently fronted by supermodel Yasmin Le Bon – and its Living homeware brand.
But despite having been trading as Asda for six decades, shoppers are only just realising what the acronym actually stands for.
And, while the business’s origins can be traced back even further – all the way to the 1920s – 1965 represents an important moment when the brand as we know it today was born.
So how did Asda get its four letter name? It all has to do with a merger that occurred exactly sixty years ago.
In 1965, Peter and Fred Asquith, sons of the Yorkshire butcher W.R. Asquith – who forty years earlier had expanded the family business across the north of England by establishing six additional stores – saw an opportunity to further grow the company that their father had passed down.
By now, the brothers had already established a self-service supermarket inspired by the US megastore Piggly Wiggly in the former Queens cinema in Castleford.
And, after the success of that store, they had opened a second one in Edington, with both trading under the name ‘Queens’.
Asda shoppers are only just realising how the supermarket giant, which turns 60 this month, got its name
In 1965, Peter Asquith built his first supermarket from scratch, tactically situating the new megastore next to a car park to draw in customers.
Around this time, as the Asquith brothers had been focused on developing their business, a group of dairy farmers from West Riding had been forging partnerships in a bid to expand their own ventures in food retail.
Banding together under the name Hindell’s Dairy Farmers Ltd. in 1949, the group was fronted by Noel Stockdale.
So, in 1965, when the Asquith brothers were looking for a buyer to take over their in-store butchery operation, the Dairy Farmers Ltd. reached out to Stockdale and proposed they enter into a merger.
When Stockdale approved the partnership, the new operation came to be known as Associated Dairies & Farm Stores Ltd, an alliance that would go on to become the one of the world’s most successful supermarket giants.
Using Asquith and Dairy, Asda was the name bestowed on the business.
Despite the name originating six decades ago, people are still discovering how it came about today.
According to the Express, newsreader Alastair Stewart tweeted: ‘Without Google, do you know what the name ASDA derives from?’
Asda was officially formed 60 years ago when the Asquith brothers merged their butchers business with a group of fairy farmers
Someone commented: ‘I don’t know anything without Google, so no.’
Another said: ‘No, sorry, but about 35 years ago I used to know what BEJAM stood for!
‘It was all the initials of the owners/children, I think! We had to learn about the company to ‘earn’ stars on our name badges, like McDs!’
Not everyone was in the dark though. One woman proudly exclaimed: ‘YES! I had a four-week summer job on George and they had a week’s training about this!!!’
Over the following six decades, the franchise would continue to grow into a multinational supermarket giant, opening stores in the US under the name Walmart.
Shortly after the merger, the company acquired Government Exchange Mart (GEM), a major US discount retailer, where they went on to achieve great retail success, including in opening the first food store to also sell general merchandise.
As part of their revamping GEM stores, Asda also introduced the very first discounted petrol filling station, which would become an integral part of their company.
Then in 1968, Associated Dairies bought out the Asquith brothers share of the company – though Peter remained a consequential force in the business.
Supermarket Yasmin Le Bon (pictured) is the current face of Asda’s popular George clothing range
The Oxford-born model poses with items from the George clothing range
By the 1970s, Asda boasted 30 stores across the country and were in the midst of developing plans to expand to the south of the UK, by which point they appointed Peter Firmston-Williams to support the expansion.
Peter oversaw Asda’s expansion into the south, with stores opening in Newport, Plymouth and Gosport.
In 1977, one landmark moment in the supermarkets advertising history would go on to become an essential part of the brand’s identity. It was during this year that the supermarket released its first ever TV ads with the famous ‘pocket tap’.
So famous was the pocket tap that it was added sign-language dictionary to refer to the supermarket.
