Shops in Victoria used to be known as Safeway until 2008, when Woolworths Limited announced that all Safeway stores would become Woolworths stores in line with the rest of Australia. The New South Wales company had taken over the Victorian chain in the 1980s but had not changed the shop names (and in fact rebranded existing Woolworths stores as Safeway). In August 2008 there were 189 supermarkets in Victoria that were to be changed from being called "Safeway" to "Woolworths".