First ever Farmfoods closes as 50-year-old Woodside shop is axed

The Woodside branch of Farmfoods has closed, more than 50 years after it opened as the company’s first ever store.

The company started in Aberdeen in 1954 as a meat processing business.

It was in the 1970s that the fledgling frozen food firm opened up a shop in what had been the Herd’s butcher unit at 160/162 Great Northern Road.

The chain became a mainstay at the corner with Barron Street.

Woodside Farmfoods had been part of community for decades

Way before the chain had branches dotted all over the country, with a turnover in excess of £1 billion last year, it was a humble Granite City butcher business.

It already had a factory elsewhere on Great Northern Road (the building near the Haudagain roundabout, which is still going) when the Woodside branch opened.

Around 1975, the firm started advertising for the “frozen food centre” there.

The chain’s website now says the Woodside shop is “permanently closed”, with the signs ripped down and windows whitewashed.

And the site is being offered to rent for £19,500 per year, or it can be bought for £185,000.

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What happened to Farmfoods plans nearby?

The closure of the Woodside Farmfoods comes after attempts to open a new supermarket a short distance away were frozen out by Aberdeen City Council.

Planning chiefs raised fears about lorries turning into the site as they ruled out plans to demolish the Roy Strathdee building just off King Street to make way for the store. 

Farmfoods has been contacted for comment on the closure of the Woodside branch.

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