Draft:Stonehouse Marketing

Stonehouse Marketing Ltd. is an Irish wholesale retail & foodservice buying group, which negotiates pricing with suppliers on behalf of its member companies.

Established in early 2000, Stonehouse is the product of the merger between Associated National Distributors (Trading as Keencost Centres Ireland), trading since 1975, and the National Wholesale Groceries Alliance, established in 1961. Stonehouse has one of the largest cash and carry networks in the Republic of Ireland made up of mostly family owned companies.

Stonehouse owns and supplied the Homestead & White Hat Brands.

History
In 2000 the rival wholesale groups National Wholesale Grocers Alliance (suppliers to the Gala) & the Associated National Distributors (suppliers to Mace) merged to form the largest wholesale cash and carry buying group in the Republic of Ireland in order to effectively compete with larger wholesalers such as BWG Foods and Musgrave. The Stonehouse logo features a Martello tower, a lookout tower, this symbol was chosen as the members felt it was important for small wholesale and Cash and carry businesses throughout the country to look out for eachother.

in July 2000, shortly the establishment of Stonehouse, BWG foods owner of the Spar franchise in the Republic of Ireland agreed to purchase the Mace Franchise in Munster from Vantage Wholesale.

In April 2003, Stonehouse formed a joint buying venture with Irish Supermarket chain Superquinn called Aontas Grocery & Foodservices Ltd (Aontas). The joint buying venture, amounted to a collective annual turnover of roughly €2 billion, was put in place to increase effectiveness for both wholesaler and retailer alike. With Aontas and Stonehouse continuing as separate legal entities. Aontas negotiated terms with suppliers on behalf of Superquinn and Stonehouse for those goods that are in common. This agreement ended in 2011 when the Musgrave Group bought Superquinn.

In March 2008 BWG Foods announched the Aquisition of the Mangan Bros Group, a Stonehouse member which operated 9 cash and carries in the West of Ireland and owned the Mace rights in Connacht and parts of Ulster and Limerick.

In November 2022 Barry Group owners of the Costcutter and Carryout Off licence chain in the Republic of Ireland announced it would leave Stonehouse on the 31st December 2022.

In Febuary 2023 Applegreen announced it would join Stonehouse.