In November 1984, when a nationwide scare erupted over claims that Mars Bars had been injected with rat poison, independent convenience retailers across Britain, many of them who were just-arrived first-generation Asian retailers with limited English, urgently needed guidance.
Mars Confectionery had no direct way to communicate with them, so its trade relations manager, Lionel Cashin, turned to the one voice he knew would cut through the panic.
It was the voice of late Ramniklal Solanki CBE, founder of Asian Media Group and then editor of the Gujarati-language weekly Garavi Gujarat.
As Ramniklal, through Garavi Gujarat, updated retailers in real time, reassuring them and reporting the police investigation findings, the grocery sector witnessed the extraordinary reach and trust he had created within this fast-growing retail community.
That fateful moment, however, also revealed a glaring gap.
Back in early in 1980s, Britain’s high streets were changing fast. Newly settled Asian families were reshaping neighbourhoods with newsagents and grocery stores that opened early, closed late, and stocked whatever their communities needed, long before the rest of retail adapted.
Yet these pioneering retailers often lacked a direct link to manufacturers or a platform that truly understood them.
It was around the Solanki family dinner table, in evenings filled with conversation that the idea took shape of a multilingual trade magazine to bridge those gaps and give independent retailers the information, representation and respect they deserved.
With the support of Mars’ managing director Dr George Greener and wholesaler Nurdin & Peacock, the idea of a dedicated trade journal for Asian-origin retailers took birth.
Powered by youthful energy of Kalpesh and Shailesh Solanki, Asian Trader quickly became more than a publication. It became the cornerstone and an anchor of British convenience sector
Four decades on, that founding mission endures. From a niche title born of community need, Asian Trader today has grown into the definitive voice of the UK convenience sector, trusted, authoritative, and rooted in the stories of the retailers who built modern Britain.