Who owns every big UK supermarket: the lookup list, with the source for each

The list

What the table does not fit

Tesco. Tesco also owns One Stop and the wholesaler Booker. One Stop runs 714 of its shops itself; the other 386 are franchised to local shopkeepers. Booker supplies independent shops and caterers, and many of the shops it supplies trade under its symbol brands while belonging to the local retailer.

Sainsbury's. VESA is the investment company the trade press reports as belonging to the Czech businessman Daniel Křetínský. Qatar Holdings, for many years the largest shareholder, is now down to 6.82%. Sainsbury's also owns Argos: 667 Argos stores in February 2026, 466 of them inside a Sainsbury's.

Asda. TDR became majority owner by buying Zuber Issa's 22.5%; Companies House shows TDR's funds in control of Bellis Finco plc, the company above Asda, from 31 October 2024. Walmart, the previous owner, kept 10% when it sold in 2021. The store count includes the Asda Express shops and the forecourt convenience business Asda bought from EG Group, the Issa brothers' petrol station company.

Aldi. The accounts name Aldi Süd KG as parent and ultimate controlling party, say the directors consider it controlled by no one, and name two German foundations, the Siepmann Stiftung and the Carolus Stiftung, as having significant influence. Aldi Stores Limited paid £250 million in dividends in 2024. The Companies House control register names nobody; it has carried a no-registrable-person statement since May 2017.

Lidl. Lidl Great Britain Limited tells Companies House that it has no registrable controller, and has since July 2018. The Schwarz Group is not listed, so there are no Lidl shares to buy. How the group itself is held is covered under what is missing, below.

Morrisons. CD&R bought Morrisons in October 2021 in a leveraged buyout. Its top UK company, Market Topco Limited, tells Companies House there is no registrable controller; the register does not say why, so the article reads the group accounts instead. Morrisons Daily, its convenience brand, has about 1,700 shops, a large share of them run by independent retailers (Retail Gazette, June 2026).

Co-op (Co-operative Group). Co-op Group describes itself as owned by and run for its members. There are no shareholders and no private equity fund. But not every shop with a Co-op sign belongs to Co-op Group: several independent regional societies trade under the same name, with their own members and boards. Lincolnshire Co-op, the next row, is one.

Lincolnshire Co-op. A separate registered society from Co-op Group. Co-op Group is its main supplier, not its owner.

M&S Food (Marks & Spencer). Some M&S Food shops are run by franchise partners rather than by M&S itself, but they sell M&S's own products under its name.

Ocado Retail (Ocado.com). The shares are still split evenly, but since 6 April 2025 M&S's share rights have given it accounting control, so M&S now reports Ocado Retail as a subsidiary. Ocado.com has sold M&S food since September 2020. In July 2026 Ocado Group was reported to have dropped its claim to a £190 million final payment from M&S under the 2019 deal (The Grocer).

Waitrose. Companies House shows the chain: Waitrose Limited is controlled by John Lewis plc, which is controlled by John Lewis Partnership plc, which is controlled by John Lewis Partnership Trust Limited. The annual report says ultimate control rests with that trust company, which holds the shares for the Partners. Staff do not hold shares they can sell.

Iceland. Founder Sir Malcolm Walker and chief executive Tarsem Dhaliwal bought out the last outside shareholder, Brait, in 2020. On the register, WD FF Limited, the holding company, recorded Walker's control ending in January 2021 and Dhaliwal's on 12 January 2026, and has since stated that no one is registrable, meaning nobody meets the register's 25% test. The register does not say why. In July 2026 Iceland refinanced €600 million of bonds, pushing £432 million of debt due in 2027 out to 2033 (The Grocer, 31 July 2026). The Food Warehouse is Iceland's larger-store brand.

Farmfoods. A Scottish company, based in Cumbernauld. Its sales passed £1.2 billion in the 53 weeks to 3 January 2026 (The Grocer).

Booths. Booths says it is still family owned and run, with Edwin Booth, of the fifth generation, as chairman. Its company, E.H. Booth & Co., Limited, tells Companies House that no one is registrable, meaning nobody meets the register's 25% test.

Spar. The four wholesalers are A.F. Blakemore, James Hall, CJ Lang in Scotland and Henderson in Northern Ireland; each runs some Spar shops itself and supplies independent shopkeepers who run the rest. In 2026 A.F. Blakemore bought the south-west Spar wholesaler, Appleby Westward, for £7 million. Spar (UK) Limited tells Companies House it has no registrable controller.

Costco. Costco Wholesale UK Limited, the trading company, is owned by Costco UK Holdings Limited, which is controlled by the US parent. Its warehouses are open to paying members only.

Whole Foods Market. Amazon has owned all of Whole Foods since 2017. In September 2025 Amazon said it would close its Amazon Fresh shops in the UK and turn five of them into Whole Foods shops.

The name over the door, and who is behind it

Several supermarkets run smaller shops, or whole other businesses, under names that don’t mention the supermarket:

• Tesco Express, One Stop, Booker: Tesco
• Sainsbury's Local, Argos: Sainsbury's
• Asda Express, and forecourt shops bought from EG Group: Asda, majority owned by TDR Capital
• Morrisons Daily: Morrisons, owned by CD&R
• Little Waitrose: Waitrose, part of the John Lewis Partnership
• M&S Food, and M&S food on Ocado.com: Marks & Spencer (Ocado Retail is half M&S, half Ocado Group)
• The Food Warehouse: Iceland

The sign doesn’t always tell you who runs the shop. A One Stop, a Morrisons Daily or a Spar can be run by a local shopkeeper under a franchise: the shopkeeper owns the business in the building, while the chain owns the name, sets the range and supplies the stock. So the owner in the table decides what is on the shelves, but the person behind the till may be working for themselves.

Five ways to own a supermarket

The owners in the table come in five kinds, and the kind matters more than the name. A listed company such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s or M&S has thousands of shareholders, mostly pension and investment funds, and publishes its results every year; anyone who builds a large stake has to say so. A private equity owner, like TDR Capital at Asda or CD&R at Morrisons, buys with a large share of borrowed money, and the business carries that debt; the aim is to sell again later at a profit. Family ownership ranges from the Booth family’s 26 northern shops to Aldi Süd, where Karl Albrecht’s family business is held through foundations and has no shares anyone can buy. Member ownership is the co-operative model: shoppers join, elect the board and share in the profits, as at the Co-op and the regional societies. Employee ownership is Waitrose’s: a trust holds the business for the people who work in it, and they share a bonus in good years.

None of these kinds makes a supermarket independent in our sense, which means a business owned by the people who run it locally. But they do decide where the profit goes: to fund investors, to a family or its foundations, back to members, or to staff.

What is missing, and why

Amazon Fresh is not in the table because Amazon said in September 2025 that it would close its UK Amazon Fresh shops and turn five of them into Whole Foods Market shops. Home Bargains and B&M sell a lot of food but are discount variety chains, not supermarkets.

Lidl’s row stops at the Schwarz Group. The group is widely reported to be held through a foundation arrangement set up by Dieter Schwarz, but neither the Schwarz Group’s own site nor its UK filings set that out, so we have left it out of the table rather than repeat it unchecked. Several regional co-operative societies besides Lincolnshire’s trade under the Co-op name; we have not traced each one yet. And three rows have no store count we could take from a primary source: Morrisons’ supermarkets, Farmfoods and Costco.

“Every big” means the supermarket and grocery chains a UK shopper is most likely to use, plus Booths and Lincolnshire Co-op for contrast. If you think one is missing, tell us which and we will trace it.

How this was checked

Every row was checked on 23 September 2026. Where a UK company exists and names its controller, the owner comes from its persons-with-significant-control entry at Companies House, followed up the chain where the controller is itself a company. Several of these companies instead tell the register that nobody is registrable, and for those the owner comes from the company’s own accounts, annual report or announcement. Listed companies are answered from their own results and shareholder disclosures. Three rows are answered by Highstreett’s own “who owns” articles, linked in the table. Store counts are rounded, carry the date they were published, and change every year.

The same lookup exists for every big UK pub company and every big UK coffee chain.