About Us : Garvey

The seeds of Garvey's retail business were sown in 1935 when Tomas Garvey's parents opened a small shop in Dingle.

In 1965 Tomas Garvey, Chief Executive took over the management of the business. He believed that innovation was the key to developing our business and we introduced the first self-service supermarket in Munster in 1966. A new 10,000 square foot store was developed in Dingle across from the original store in 1976, and the original building was developed into a sports and leisure store.

Further expansion followed with the opening of Castleisland in 1987, Tralee in 1992, and the purchase of the two L&N stores in 1996 in Listowel and Newcastlewest. The first Centra store was opened in 1998. The most recent store, Garvey's SuperValu in Dungarvan, was acquired in 2000. The Group acquired a new store in Corbally, Limerick City which opened in September 2002. In 2005 the Group opened a new store in Castleisland with the first forecourt in the Group while the old store closed. In July 2006 the group purchased Coolagh Service Station in Dungarvan and in February 2007 purchased Supervalu in Cobh, Co Cork.

Though Garvey's is a family owned business, our association with Musgraves is very important to us. Musgraves, who operate the SuperValu and Centra franchise, give us the purchasing strength of Ireland’s largest retail business and allow us to combine the strength of being an independent and local retail business with the marketing and support services of a multiple business.

We pride ourselves on our involvement in the community we serve. Our sponsorship of local community based organisations and events and our commitment to buying from local suppliers are important elements in our service to our customers.

Our strength is our approach to teamwork in Garvey's SuperValu Supermarkets and our commitment to superior customer service. As a team we always ensure that the quality of our stores stands out (we were the first independent store in Ireland to receive the 'Q' mark) and since achieved the Excellence Ireland Hygiene Awards. This is expressed through excellent presentation and through genuine friendly and helpful customer service. We use the QUAD to measure our performance.

At Garvey's we value our employees highly, and actively seek to encourage and motive them to develop and achieve personal goals in line with our commercial objectives and standards. Garvey's policy on training and development is to provide ongoing job related training at all levels, which will increase the efficiency of the organisation and fulfil each employee's individual growth. To achieve this policy we constantly review the training needs of our employees and requirements for all types of training programmes in line with the business needs.

Tomas Garvey