| Company type | Ltd |
|---|---|
| Industry | Food,Pastry |
| Founded | 1931 |
| Headquarters | Nottingham, England |
Key people | Ken Parr |
| Products | pork pies,sausage rolls |
| Owner | Lloyds Development Capital |
Number of employees | 2,000+ |
| Subsidiaries | Bowyers, Farmhouse,Palethorpes, Wall's |
Pork Farms is aNottingham-based British producer and distributor of mainly pork-based bakery products. The company grew from apie shop founded in 1931, and was floated on theLondon Stock Exchange in 1971. After several sales and amalgamations, since 2017 the brand has been owned byLloyds Development Capital.
In the early 1940s, recentlyCity and Guilds qualifiedbaker Ken Parr received a £9,000 loan to open his ownpie shop. He developed a reputation founded on good baking, and developed the first "original"pork pie based on an old recipe, with signature dark and crispy pastry. He then bought another local pie shop, founded in 1931 which traded under the name Pork Farms, which he adopted for all of his shops.[1]
In the mid-1960s, Parr's business was bought by food tycoonW. Garfield Weston, who made Parr Chairman. In 1969, rival Nottingham pie company TN Parr, formerly owned by Parr's uncle but then bySamworth Brothers, bought out Pork Farms, again bringing together the two companies together under the Pork Farms brand.[2] In 1972, Pork Farms bought rivalHolland's Pies. In 1971, the group was floated on theLondon Stock Exchange as Pork Farms Ltd.
In 1974, Pork Farms andNorthern Foods created joint venture company Porkdown Ltd, to supply meat products to French foods groupDanone. But immediately after production started, Danone undertook a group-wide review, and on deciding to concentrate on theirmilk-based products line, closed down the contract. The resultant losses closed Porkdown, and in 1978 lead to the agreed sale of Pork Farms to Northern Foods, after the Samworth family agreed sale of their shares to the group. Later merged by Northern with bothPalethorpes ofMarket Drayton andBowyers ofTrowbridge, Wiltshire, to formPork Farms Bowyers, the company sold the Bowyers and Palethorpes pork sausage business and brands to theKerry Group in 2001, to concentrate on baked meat products.[3]
Bought byprivate equity firm Vision Capital in 2007,[4] withEuropean Union legislation focusing on the need to produceMelton Mowbray Pork Pies within a defined distance ofMelton Mowbray, the company chose to close the Trowbridge plant and invest £12 million into the Nottingham plant to increase Melton Mowbray pie production.[5] In 2010, the company employed over 2,000 people at five locations, inPoole, Nottingham, Market Drayton andShaftesbury.[6]
In 2011, Pork Farms commemorated its 80th anniversary with a £1 million relaunch and a new range of slices. Packaging carried the straplines 'Making & Baking since 1931' and 'Butchers, Bakers, Master Piemakers'.[7]
In 2014, the company proposed to buy two pastry product manufacturing sites, atSpalding and Poole, from Kerry Group; the sale was approved in 2015 on completion of an investigation by theCompetition and Markets Authority.[8][9] The same year, Vision Capital combined Pork Farms with other chilled savoury pastry brands under Addo Food Group.[10]
In 2017, Addo was sold toLloyds Development Capital, another private equity firm.[11]
