The first Budgens shop was opened in 1872, by John Budgen. The first few shops were small local groceries, which expanded across the south of England. In October 1997, Budgens acquired the 55-shop network of 7-Eleven shops 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 thirty 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 their Budgens shops; the largest shops were disposed of on the open market with shops in places including Tadley and Mildenhall to larger shop chains. Other shops were divested to independent retailers including Jempsons and Tout and CT Baker who continue to trade from them under the 'Budgens' name. Musgraves also franchised the Budgens brand, leading to more shop openings in the independent sector and expanding the brand to many forecourt shops. In 2007, the divestment of the original Budgens shops to independent retailers was completed, but by March 2009, a few Budgens shops whose franchise holders had failed to perform, had been returned to Musgrave. A further eight shops were bought in 2009 from the Co-op. In May 2015, Budgens' parent company Musgrave Group confirmed it had reached an agreement to sell Budgens and Londis for £40 million to the wholesaler Booker Group, subject to regulatory approval. In February/March 2017, the shops that had been taken over from Somerfield closed after 8 months of opening. In January 2017 Tesco launched a takeover bid for Budgens' parent company the grocery wholesaler Booker.
Shops
The shops range in size from around 140m² to around 1,200m², and therefore fall into the convenience shop size range and the bottom end of the supermarket size range, as these two terms are used in the United Kingdom. According to retail analysts TNS Worldpanel, Budgens ranked 13th in the grocery sector in the United Kingdom in December 2004, with a market share of 0.4%. The largest Budgens shop was in the town of Holt, Norfolk, with just over 13,000 square feet/1,207m until it was destroyed by fire on 20 June 2020. The first two Scottish shops opened in July 2016, these were bought from the Co Operative, and had previously been shops of Somerfield and Safeway. They are located in Paisley and Prestwick. The Paisley shop closed later that year. In 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2012, Budgens was voted Fresh Foods Convenience Retailer of the Year, in the company owned sector at the Retail Industry Awards.
Corporate identity
Currently, there is no official record of previous corporate identities used by this company. As the supermarket concept developed in the United Kingdom in the 1950s, the appearance of the brand names developed as well and were designed to be colourful, eye catching and distinctive. Budgens adopted a colour scheme during the end of the 1960s, which incorporated orange as the base colour, very popular at the time. The shops were branded simply as 'Budgen', a progression from 'Budgen & Co. Ltd.', in a unique white font on the orange background. A distinctive logo was also used for the 'Budgen' branding, which incorporated a tulip depicted in orange and white on a brown rounded square background. The orange 'Budgen' corporate identity was used from c. 1968 to 1989. Budgen was subsequently rebranded 'Budgens' from c. 1990 onward. The orange gave way to a white background, the tulip logo disappeared and the font was changed to a handwriting style scribble, in orange, underlined in green. There is as yet no record of this identity either, which was used until c. 1997, when the identity was altered again. A dark green colour scheme with 'Budgens' in white capital letters was introduced. This identity has again been replaced with a lighter two tone green background, with the 'Budgens' device now depicted in a lower case font.
