The origins of the company started in 1945 by John Friday Turner and traded for many years as J.F. Turner as an independent stocktaker in the London area. Ron Garner joined the company in the early 1960’s and formed a partnership which lasted until John Turner’s retirement in 1968. The company continued to grow during this period and branched out into the Home Counties and surrounding areas. The company continued to trade as J.F. Turner until 1981, when the name was eventually changed to R.A. Garner.

Another change came about in June 1987 when Grahame Hedgecock joined the company and he in turn became a partner. The company acquired the firm of W.H. Cork in 1998 and further expanded by joining forces with Ian Randall and his company Alan Port & Co. in 2003.

Since the retirement of Ron Garner in April 2002 and Ian Randall in March 2021,  the company is now solely in the capable hands of Grahame Hedgecock who has a full working knowledge in  all aspects of Strocktaking in retail and wholesale trades, with over 50 years experience.

The resulting diversity of our specialist areas allow us to serve a wide variety of businesses in commerce and industry as well as enabling us to give expert advice to individual clients.

Our reputation and professionalism are such that we have undertaken work for some of the largest and well known companies in the UK and across the world.

These include identifying stock locations for British Airways after moving  parts and spares stock to their state of the art storage facility in Hatton Cross.

Multinational company, Aramark, used our services after purchasing Naffi stores for their interim stock checks throughout the UK. These stores are located inside the bases of our Armed Forces where background checks and security clearance were required.

We also provided stock figures to Tesco during their acquisition of Europa Food & Wine which, at the time, was the largest indepenent grocers in London. The sale was reported to cost Tesco £54m.

Welcome Break enlisted our services to provide stock figures for their service stations over many years, most on a monthly basis, covering the majority of sites across England and Wales.

See Woo Foods Ltd use our team to perform their annual stock checks in their supermarket in China Town, their Cash & Carry and also their various warehouses, all based in London. This working relationship has continued for over 30 years

Finally, Southwold Pier underwent a transfer of business in 2013. The vendors contacted us to facilitate the transfer value of cafes, bars, retail outlets and amusements. After a satisfactory valuation we were contacted with gratitude, "I was hugely impressed by the way in which the count was conducted, so thorough, and so clear and unquestionable", "you made the whole counting issue far more easy than I expected".