When the youngest son of a Yorkshire farmer wanted to marry into a successful publishing family, he was told he should find a more suitable job. The family were founders of Morgan Brothers (proprietors of The Ironmonger and Chemist and Druggist), who would eventually merge with the Grampian Press to become Morgan Grampian and more recently Miller Freeman and then United Business Media. So in 1861 William Reed founded his own publishing company and in 1862 launched his first journal from premises based in Bow Lane, London. As a sugar merchant in the early years of his career, he worked with grocers throughout the country and so had acquired considerable knowledge of the trade to publish his first journal.

When William Reed died in 1920 aged 90, his son Leicester Morgan Reed, a barrister and active public figure, continued running the company as a sole proprietor: until 1927 when he became Chairman of the Board of the newly registered private company. He was then succeeded by his only son C.W. Reed in 1943, who was Chairman and Managing Director until 1984, when his son Laurence Reed took over. Five generations later the current Group Managing Director is Charles Reed and the business is still family run and still publishes The Grocer, but the company itself has changed out of all recognition.

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