Franklins

Franklin's Family Supermarket was a supermarket chain selling packaged groceries and perishables throughout New South Wales, Australia. It created the No Frills brand of generic products, promoted by their mascot, "Red Sock," and labelled itself "Australia's Original Discount Grocer." Franklins also had stores in Queensland, Victoria and South Australia until 2001. In 2011 the entire chain was bought by Metcash and the stores are being sold off to independent buyers to operate as IGA supermarkets.

History

Beginnings (1941-1978)

In 1941, Franklins was established in Sydney by Frank Lindstrom. It was his second supermarket chain, having sold his first one to Woolworths. In 1954, Franklins was acquired by Harold Cornock and Norman Tieck. Under their leadership it grew to cover much of New South Wales, and created a reputation for low prices.

Early Dairy Farm International (1978-1992)

In 1978, Cornock and Tieck sold the then 75-store supermarket chain to Hong Kong company Dairy Farm International, a member of the Jardine Matheson group, which maintained the chain's discount focus. Its turnover was A$1 million. Franklins launched its No Frills generic range of products (store brand). This was the first such range in Australia. The 'No Frills' brand became very important to Franklins as it provided the best value to customers. However, unlike Aldi in Europe, Franklins also retained a wide range of brand items. Franklins' stores outside NSW were branded black-and-white 'Franklins No Frills' to emphasize the label. Eventually the name replaced the white-on-red 'Franklins' in the home state of NSW, until the brand reverted to a red, white and black 'Franklins'. In retaliation, Woolworths later launched "Home Brand" and Coles launched "Scotch Buy" (later rebranded as "Savings"). Around this time, Bi-Lo began operations in Adelaide, using a similar format to Franklins.