Sims Supermarket was a chain of independent

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. Strictly speaking, a supermarket is larger and has a wider selecti ...

s across the western suburbs of

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

, Australia.

History

Sims Supermarkets were the first location in Australia to use

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, Machine-readable data, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly ref ...

s, starting in 1979. Over the years stores were branded as SSW, Payless, Tuckerbag, Foodworks and IGA, amongst others. The Sims stores were owned and operated by the Sims family until going into administration and later being sold in 2017, and formerly were part of various buying groups. After going into administration, the remaining West Footscray and Werribee stores were brought by Scroeder Family Supermarkets in 2017. However, the Werribee store was later sold to Reddrop Management Group, who own multiple Melbourne independent supermarkets, in 2019. The West Footscray store has also since been renovated and is no longer operating as a Sims.

Operations

Sims Supermarket stores were previously located in

Altona North Altona North is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south-west of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the City of Hobsons Bay Local government areas of Victoria, local government ar ...

, Deer Park, Glenroy,

Lalor Lalor is an Irish surname derived from the Irish ''Ó Leathlobhair'', from ''leath-'' “leper; weak, ailing person”. Notable people with the surname include: * Denis Lalor, athlete * Francis Ramsey Lalor (1856–1929), politician * James Fi ...

, Melton,

North Melbourne North Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, north-west of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the City of Melbourne Local government ar ...

, Pascoe Vale South,

Sunshine Sunlight is the portion of the electromagnetic radiation which is emitted by the Sun (i.e. solar radiation) and received by the Earth, in particular the visible light perceptible to the human eye as well as invisible infrared (typically per ...

Hoppers Crossing Hoppers Crossing is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south-west of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, central business district, located within the City of Wyndham Local government areas of Victoria, local government ar ...

, Thomastown,

West Footscray West Footscray or "Wefo" is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Maribyrnong local government area. West Footscray recorded a population of 11,729 at ...

Werribee Werribee is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the local government area of the City of Wyndham. Werribee recorded a population of 50,027 at the 2021 census. Werrib ...

, Yarraville and

Geelong West Geelong West is a commercial and residential suburb of Geelong, Victoria, Australia. When Geelong was founded, the area was known as Kildare but its name was changed to Geelong West in 1875. The main street is Pakington Street. At the 2016 c ...

. Sims

IGA IGA or IgA may refer to: Businesses and organizations * IGA (supermarkets) (initially Independent Grocers Alliance), a name used by many independent supermarkets throughout the world ** IGA (Australian supermarket group), the local Australian v ...

stores were located in Lilydale and

Blackburn North Blackburn North (formerly North Blackburn) is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 17 km east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Whitehorse local government area. Blackburn North recorded a populatio ...

but were turned into IGAs. The one in Lilydale suffered foot traffic problems and was turned into a

FoodWorks FoodWorks is an Australian supermarket chain run by independent retail group Australian United Retailers (AUR). It is Australia's second largest independent supermarket retailing group behind Metcash, supporting in excess of Australian dollar, ...

then closed down, closing down almost the entire shopping strip which was afterwards sold to

Bunnings Bunnings Group Limited, trading as Bunnings Warehouse or Bunnings, is an Australian hardware and garden centre chain. The chain has been owned by Wesfarmers since 1994, and has stores in Australia and New Zealand. Bunnings was founded in Per ...

References

{{food-company-stub Defunct supermarkets of Australia