Musgrave group breaks link with retail outlets

The Musgrave Group has discontinued its leading franchise operation in central Dublin after a long-running disagreement over "business strategy" at seven of its Centra and SuperValu convenience stores in the city.

Retail sources said the disagreement with the Griffin Group centred on the pricing of goods in the stores. This was denied last night by one of the group's co-owners, Séamus Griffin.

The Griffin Group owns six Centra convenience stores in Dublin and leases a SuperValu supermarket in the city centre under a franchise agreement with Musgrave's.

In return for use of brands such as Centra and SuperValu, retailers in these networks typically agree to source all their supplies from a single wholesaler such as Musgrave.

Six of the outlets owned by the Griffin Group, which are are among the most prominent in Dublin, will cease to trade under the Centra brand from Friday.

The stores are at Westmoreland Street, O'Connell Street, St James' Hospital, College Green and St Stephen's Green the city centre and the Millennium Mall in Sandyford. Séamus Griffin said last night that these outlets will transfer to the Londis brand, owned by ADM Londis.

The Griffin Group will continue to operate the SuperValu supermarket on Aston Quay until mid October.

The group will sell the lease back to Musgrave, who will appoint a new franchisee.

Musgrave said in a statement that it and the Griffin Group had "discontinued" their agreement.

"The departure of the Griffin Group has been under discussion for some months and is due to divergent views on business strategy between the parties which we unfortunately have not been able to reconcile.

"Musgrave SuperValu-Centra has been anticipating this move for some time and has already opened six new stores in Dublin with a further 11 new stores planned to open by year end."

Musgrave said it regretted the end of its business relationship with Séamus Griffin and his brother Ger, who own the Griffin Group. One source said the stores in the Griffin network were projected to have sales this year of €35 million.

While the removal of these stores from the Centra-SuperValu network will deprive Musgrave of franchise income, other retail sources said Musgrave was not happy with Griffin Group's pricing. Séamus Griffin said this was not so. "I can categorically tell you that it wasn't about price. There's a number of issues but price definitely was not the issue... There's no bad feeling between Musgrave's and ourselves.

"We've made the decision to leave Musgrave's and Musgrave's aren't happy with that decision."