Coles Group
former Australian retailing company (1914–2007)
Coles Group Limited is an Australian public company operating several retail chains. Its chief operations are primarily concerned with the sale of food and groceries through its flagship supermarket chain Coles Supermarkets, and the sale of liquor through its Coles Liquor outlets. Since its foundation in Collingwood, Victoria in 1914, Coles has grown to become the second-largest retailer in Australia after its principal rival, Woolworths Group, in terms of revenue.
Formerly known as Coles Myer Ltd. from 1986 to 2006, Coles Group was owned by Wesfarmers from 2007 until 2018, when it was spun-off, with it once again listed as an independent public company on the Australian Securities Exchange, containing Coles Supermarkets, Coles Online, Coles Express, Coles' liquor division, Coles' financial division, and Flybuys.
History
G.J. Coles & Coy (1914–1986)
George Coles father married Ann Cameron "Annie" Topp of Buninyong on 20 August 1902 and sold his shop, measuring 20 by 18 feet (6.1 m × 5.5 m), in the Victorian country town of St James to eldest son George in 1910 for £4500, he then moved to Wilmot, Tasmania (around 30 km south of Ulverstone), where he opened yet another shop. G.J. Coles learnt his trade from his family's general store in Wilmot, Tasmania which his father owned between 1910 and 1921, the wooden heritage store continued but was destroyed by fire in 2014.
The Coles brand we know now was founded in 1914 by George Coles when he opened what was called the "Coles Variety Store" in Smith Street in the Melbourne suburb of Collingwood. More stores opened and the chain was regarded as the leaders in providing value to Australian shoppers. The building formerly occupied by the original Coles Variety Store is ironically now the location of a Woolworths supermarket – the major competitor to Coles.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Coles Group” is former Australian retailing company (1914–2007). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Coles, Group and former, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1339055. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1914, 1986, 2006 and 2007.
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This entry incorporates text from “Coles Group” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.