The company was founded by George Barham in 1864 as the Express County Milk Supply Company, named after the fact that they only used express trains to get their milk to London.
Post war, Britain was changing. The chairman's new son-in-law, American citizen and ex-US Navy sailor Patrick Galvani had been studying retailing before coming to the UK, particularly supermarkets. Galvani made a pitch to the board, which resulted in Britain's first supermarket opening in Streatham, South London in 1951 under the Premier Supermarkets brand. While the average British retailer was taking £98/week, the average take at Premier was £1,000/week. The company developed an estate footprint of similar 2,500 square feet (230 m2)+ retail outlets, all under the Premier Supermarkets brand. In 1960, in attempt to develop a national footprint, Galvani made a pitch to the board to buy northern based Irwin's 212 stores, but they refused to back him; Jack Cohen of Tesco subsequently bought the chain. After Galvani resigned over a dispute to take Green Shield Stamps, in 1964 the chain was sold to Unilever's Mac Fisheries chain for £1million. The cash income allowed Express to develop and launch marketing for long-life milk.
