The business for the majority of its existence was owned by companies controlled by Garfield Weston and his family, but were sold in 1986 to the Dee Corporation, operators of Gateway Foodmarkets with the stores being rebranded.

[16] In January 1959, the company won a court case against Brighton Corporation, which had insisted that its outlets closed on Wednesday afternoons under the Shops Act 1950.

[23] In 1963, with the company struggling with its rapid expansion and not having enough junior managers, Garfield Weston stopped the supermarket building plan, with 46 of the stores not opened being sold or leased to rivals, like Tesco.

[24][25][26][27] Soon after it was reported that business had made a net loss of $3.7 million to the year ending 30 March 1963, with many criticising the company of poor marketing.

As part of the deal, George Metcalfe, the boss of Weston's Canadian grocery chain Loblaws joined as chair of Howardsgate Holdings.

[26] The company at the time had 275 supermarkets and 375 grocery stores operating under such names as John Shental; Albert Hausen; Fred Brown; Boyce Adams and Arthur Davy & Sons.

In protest at the issuing of the stamps, the alliance members stopped stocking Associated British Foods Sunblest bread brand, and by 1964 Fine Fare cancelled their contract with Sperry & Hutchinson, though Cooper stores in Scotland continued.

Gulliver, 35, had worked as a consultant for Associated British Foods construction subsidiary and impressed Weston enough to offer him the management role at Fine Fare.

[35] The company name was changed from Howardsgate Holdings to Fine Fare (Holdings) Ltd.[42] Gulliver meanwhile was introducing a scheme called Management by Objective, splitting the central management structure into four regional groups, creating own brand products and revising operating processes from warehousing to shelf stocking.

[49] The remaining 20% of Fine Fare (Holdings) were purchased from George Weston in 1968 for $2,243,000 by Associated British Foods, making it a wholly owned subsidiary for the first time since 1963.

[53] During 1968, the company introduced new products, including plants, a first for a British supermarkets which was not followed by its rivals until two years later, and its own brand wines and spirits.

[60] The company were still operating a variety of brands including Elmos, Carlines, Forrest Stores, Blower Bros., Scott's Fine Fare and Chas H.

[69][70] Fine Fare announced that they would be the third UK retailer to withdraw from the full price records market in 1973,[71] and that they planned to open 8 new superstores.

[77] In 1976, Fine Fare bought 47 stores of the East Anglian based Downsway supermarket chain, which was owned by the Vestey family business, Union International Group.

[59] To improve their competitiveness in the low price wars, Fine Fare launched Yellow Pack, Britain's supermarket first basic range, which followed the idea first started by Carrefour in 1976.

[86] The business grew further in 1980 by the purchase of 57 Pricerite stores in the South of the country from owner BAT adding them to their 131 Shoppers Paradise chain,[87] and started to experiment with the use of bar code scanners at tills.

[98] The company had continued to roll out the use of bar code scanning laser pen readers to stores, including all Shoppers Paradise shops so they could increase product lines from 650 to 1,250.

[102][103][104] All Dee Corporation's newly acquired stores were then either rebranded as Gateway Foodmarkets or closed, meaning the Fine Fare name (including Shoppers Paradise and Melias) disappeared by the end of 1988.

[109] Young & Rubicom London's advertising campaign for the launch of Fine Fare's new Birchwood Hypermarket received second prize in the IPA Effectiveness Awards.

[114] A Fine Fare Yellow Pack advert by the advertising agency Collett Dickenson Pearce won a Bronze Arrow at the British Television Awards.

Fine Fare is mentioned in the song Aisle of Plenty from the album Selling England by the Pound by the progressive rock band, Genesis.

[126] It was also the subject of a song by the punk band Toy Dolls called Nowt Can Compare to Sunderland Fine Fare from their fourth album Bare Faced Cheek.