Asda Stores Ltd. is a British supermarket chain. It is headquartered in Leeds, England. The company was founded in 1949 when the Asquith family merged their retail business with the Associated Dairies company of Yorkshire. It expanded into Southern England during the 1970s and 1980s and acquired Allied Carpets, 61 large Gateway Supermarkets and other businesses, such as MFI Group. It sold these acquisitions during the 1990s to concentrate on the supermarkets. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange until 1999 when it was acquired by Walmart for £6.7 billion. Asda was the second-largest supermarket chain in the United Kingdom between 2003 and 2014 by market share, at which point it fell into third place.

Besides its core supermarkets, the company also offers assistance for insurance and payment services and a mobile phone provider.

In February 2021, EG Group and TDR Capital acquired Asda. Walmart retains “an equity investment” in Asda, a seat on the board and “an ongoing commercial relationship”. The deal came after an acquisition by Sainsbury’s was rejected by the Competition and Markets Authority.

The Asquith family were butchers based in Knottingley, Wakefield, West Yorkshire. In the 1920s, they expanded their business to seven butchers shops in the area. Their sons, Peter and Fred, later became founding members of Asda.

Around the same time, a group of West Riding dairy farmers, including the Stockdale family and Craven Dairies, joined together under the banner of J.W Hindell Dairy Farmers Ltd. The company diversified in 1949 to become Associated Dairies and Farm Stores Ltd, with Arthur Stockdale as the managing director.