Garry Weston

Garry Weston, who has died aged 74, was the third generation of a family of entrepreneurs who popularised some of the most famous grocery brands in Britain, ran the upmarket grocer in Piccadilly, Fortnum and Mason, and disproved the theory that two generations are enough when it comes to running businesses.

Weston took over Associated British Foods (ABF) in 1967 and ran it for more than 30 years with quiet success. An untypical businessman, he avoided fashions and fanfares, and succeeded in handing over to the next generation something more valuable than he inherited - including mass-market brands such as Sunblest bread and Silver Spoon sugar.

Born in Canada, Weston was brought up in the UK and lived here all his life except for a 14-year stint in Australia, where he went to escape his tyrannical father. "I don't want to blame my father for anything," he once said of his escape from England, "but it was the first time I woke up in the morning and wanted to get out of bed."

Weston Senior was more in the usual mould of the businessman. A disciplinarian, he was known to fire Fortnum and Mason staff for smoking on the back stairs. Garry got his break running Ryvita in the UK because he happened to be passing his father's office as the previous boss of the crispbread business was being sacked.

The elder Weston had transformed the business from a small Toronto bakery established by his father, who was a Cockney emigrant. Beginning in 1924, it became a huge multinational conglomerate, which moved back into the UK in 1934 and extended into South Africa and the US. Garfield started with bakeries but quickly added biscuits and retail outlets, including the Fine Fare supermarket chain as well as Fortnum and Mason at the other end of the spectrum.

Educated at Sir William Borlase school, Marlow, New College, Oxford, and Harvard, he then joined the family business, but did not enjoy working under his father. He left for Australia in 1951. There he built up the Australian branch of the family empire and his own family.

When Garry was tempted back to the UK in 1967 to take over the British end of the empire, he sensed a mood of frustration: "Too many intelligent young people who are not being given their heads." At the time he seemed a breath of fresh air after his austere father. But for three decades he maintained an iron grip on the group, watching every penny and largely avoiding the takeover fever that raged through most of the period.

There were a few exceptions as he sought to make sense of the sprawling empire he had inherited. Fine Fare was sold in 1986. British Sugar (the company that allowed Weston to joke that he had been born with a Silver Spoon in his mouth) was finally acquired in 1991, after an attempt in 1987 was abandoned because of the stock market crash. The Irish supermarkets were sold to Tesco in 1997.

Weston was happy to acknowledge his lack of extravagance. He dispensed with a chauffeur after a few weeks because the man spent most of his time ferrying Mrs Weston around London. The billionaire would also take a bus to Fortnum and Mason. He once explained: "I have to sell 10 loaves to make a penny. You cannot afford to be extravagant."

He was proud of his lack of flamboyance and love of his work. While a family man and the owner of an Oxfordshire farm as well as his Knightsbridge base, Weston admitted that his work was his main preoccupation. "I envy people who can leave their work and forget about it," he once said. Gardening was his main relaxation and he could not understand why people thought it odd that someone with his financial resources would spend his Sunday off stripping down his lawnmower.

His lack of ostentation extended to his charitable programme, which was considerable. His £20m for the British Museum in the late 1990s was the largest private donation it had ever received. The Weston trusts handed out £30m a year, mainly to medical charities, arts and education.

The same applied to his politics. Like many business leaders of his era, he was a great admirer of Margaret Thatcher. ABF was one of the band of big businesses that made large donations to the Conservative party during her period in office. But he was not one of those - like Lord Sterling and Lord Hanson - who she would look to for support and advice, nor was he interested in being part of her circle.

As he approached 70, Garry gave every indication that he would carry on. But he finally bowed to pressure to separate his dual role of chairman and chief executive, appointing Peter Jackson as chief executive in December 1998. And after suffering a mild stroke in 1999, he finally retired from the ABF board, after 51 years, in 2000. He left a business worth about £4bn, compared to £140m when he took over.

He is survived by his wife, Mary, his three sons and three daughters. His son George is deputy chairman of ABF, Garth runs Ryvita, while his eldest daughter, Jana Khayat, is chairman of Fortnum and Mason - an indication that the family's business acumen could be carried on into a fourth generation.

· Garfield Howard Weston, businessman, born April 28 1927; died February 15 2002.

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