Famous Brand Names & Their Origins Read online

  Actually, that’s the whole raison d’être behind Bird’s Custard Powder. It was invented sometime in the 1840s by Birmingham chemist Alfred Bird who wanted his egg-allergic wife to be able to enjoy eating custard. Mrs Bird was very partial to the stuff but her digestion suffered when she gave in to her cravings. Her dilemma inspired Alfred to tinker about in his lab until he had come up with an egg-free alternative to custard. Not only did his cornflour-based creation please Mrs Bird, it also found favour with the British public when it went into mass production.

  When Alfred died in 1879 his son, another Alfred, took control of the company, introducing new ranges such as blancmange and jelly. In 1922 Bird’s rebranded with the red, yellow and blue packaging that is still used today. The three-bird logo appeared at the same time. Today Bird’s is part of the Premier Foods group.

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  We also have Mrs Bird’s digestive problems to thank for the existence of Baking Powder; before tackling egg-free custard, her husband sought a solution to her yeast intolerance. He came up with Bird’s Fermenting Powder which was later renamed Baking Powder.

  Bisto – aboard the gravy train since 1908

  ‘Ah! Bisto’. Roast dinner enthusiasts have been trotting out the famous gravy powder’s catchphrase for more than ninety years while the product itself dates back to 1908. That was when Messrs Roberts and Patterson, employees of the Cerebos salt company, formulated a recipe for an easy-to-use gravy powder. According to legend, it was at their wives’ request that they came up with the recipe; apparently the ladies were unable to make satisfactory gravy so they turned to their husbands for help.

  Whether or not the story is apocryphal, an unfair slur on the culinary prowess of Mrs Roberts and Mrs Patterson, what is undeniable is that the resulting product made it much easier to create lump-free, flavoursome gravy. For that reason it rapidly found favour with the British public and in 1919 the brand’s popularity received a further boost when the Bisto Kids first featured on Bisto’s advertising and packaging.

  Illustrator Will Owen created the pair of scruffy street urchins who sniffed the air appreciatively as they caught the appealing aroma of Bisto gravy, prompting them to utter the memorable ‘Ah! Bisto’ catchphrase. The hungry duo’s rather wistful enthusiasm for Bisto resonated with the public to such an extent that they achieved cult-like status, especially during the Twenties and Thirties. The Bisto Kids remained a fixture on Bisto ads until 1996 when they were quietly dropped as part of the brand’s efforts to appear more contemporary. However, the ‘Ah! Bisto’ slogan survives to this day.

  The arrival of Bisto Granules in 1979 took gravy-making to a new level of simplicity; now, if you can boil a kettle you can make palatable gravy to accompany your sausage and mash. Today the brand is owned by Premier Foods.

  Did you know …?

  The Bisto name is an acronym of the phrase ‘Browns Instantly, Seasons and Thickens in One’.

  Bovril – beefing up Britain since 1886

  The meat extract known as Bovril was created by a teetotal butcher from Edinburgh called John Lawson Johnston; he was born John Johnston but added the Lawson on his marriage to Elizabeth Lawson in 1871. Having studied chemistry for a while at Edinburgh University, Johnston conducted experiments in food preservation in his spare time and this pastime ultimately led to the development of a product which he named Johnston’s Fluid Beef.

  His big break came in 1874 when he was commissioned by the French government to look into the potential benefits of concentrated beef products. At the time the French were still smarting from the catastrophic pummelling their troops had taken in the Franco-Prussian War and they thought that improved nutrition might lead to a stronger army. Taking his family to Canada, Johnston opened a factory and began producing his Fluid Beef. The timing was serendipitous because a new Canadian law restricting the sale of alcohol had left the populace searching for a hearty, non-alcoholic substitute. Johnston returned to Britain in 1884, opening a factory in London for the manufacture of his unique product which was renamed Bovril in 1886. The name came from ‘Bos’, the Latin word for ox, and ‘Vril’, a word meaning energy force which was taken from The Coming Race, an 1870 novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

  In 1893 Bovril began a sustained advertising campaign aimed at promoting the product’s health benefits (Will Owen, the illustrator who created the Bisto Kids, produced many ads for the Bovril campaign). Its beneficial effect on Britain’s armed forces was emphasised in advertising slogans used during both the Boer War and First World War, and it received glowing testimonials from such patriotic luminaries as Robert Baden-Powell and Rudyard Kipling.

  Johnston sold Bovril to Ernest Hooley in 1896 for £2 million. The company was sold again in 1971, this time to Cavenham Foods, and it is now owned by Unilever. In 2004, in a bid to make it suitable for vegetarians, Bovril’s beef content was dropped and replaced with savoury yeast. However, the change was shortlived and Bovril is beefy once more.

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  Scottish-born Bovril-inventor John Lawson Johnston had a quick wit and a nice way with one-liners. When asked by a facetious journalist how, if Bovril was so indispensable, our forefathers had managed to survive without it, he replied without missing a beat: ‘They didn’t – they are all dead.’

  Branston Pickle – bringing it out since 1922

  Something of a British institution, Branston Pickle has been enlivening our cold cuts and sandwiches since 1922. Produced by Crosse and Blackwell, a food company established in the early nineteenth century, the pickle is made to a recipe said to have been developed by a Mrs Graham and her daughters, Evelyn and Ermentrude. Their combination of diced vegetables including cauliflower, carrot, swede, onion and gherkin mixed with a sweet vinegary sauce enhanced with spices excited British palates accustomed to blander fare. The original recipe remains unchanged today and is still a winner, with more than 17 million jars purchased every year. High-profile fans include Rolling Stone Keith Richards who allegedly takes it on tour with him, and fictional singleton Bridget Jones who eats hers straight from the jar.

  Branston Pickle first went into production at Crosse and Blackwell’s Branston factory – hence its name – near Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire. The site had been built during the First World War as a Government armaments factory but it was not completed until after hostilities had ceased. In 1921 Crosse and Blackwell purchased the site and relocated their pickle and preserves operation from London, employing 600 people, approximately two-thirds of whom were women. However, the move proved too costly for Crosse and Blackwell and by 1925 Branston Pickle was being produced in London’s Bermondsey area. Thus the famous pickle’s association with the village for which it was named proved somewhat short-lived. After Bermondsey, Branston Pickle moved to a number of different locations including Tay Wharf in London, Peterhead near Aberdeen and Glossop in Derbyshire before arriving at its present location, Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk.

  The slogan ‘Bring out the Branston’ was launched as part of a nationwide advertising campaign in 1972. Intended to encourage consumers to use the jars of pickle lurking in their food cupboards, the catchy phrase caught the public imagination to such an extent that it is still closely associated with the product today even though it has not been used since 1985. In 1960 Crosse and Blackwell was bought by Nestlé who in turn sold the Crosse and Blackwell brands to Premier Foods in 2002. In October 2012 Premier Foods sold Branston Pickle to Japanese food empire Mizkan but production continues at Bury St Edmunds.

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  A serious fire in 2004 at the Bury St Edmunds Branston Pickle factory precipitated fears of a nationwide pickle shortage. Premier Foods, owners of the brand at the time, ran full-page adverts in national newspapers reassuring concerned consumers that their favourite pickle would be available in time for post-Christmas turkey sandwiches.

  Carnation Milk – milk to pour over since 1899

  Many of us grew up pouring Carnation Evaporated Milk o
ver our tinned fruit and today plenty of budding confectioners find Carnation Condensed Milk an indispensable aid to fudge-making. What few of Carnation’s enthusiastic consumers know, however, is that the brand owes much of its long-lasting success to the innovations of a Swiss dairyman affectionately known as Cheese John.

  Cheese John, real name John Meyenberg, worked for the Pacific Coast Condensed Milk Company (later renamed the Carnation Milk Company) which was established by Elbridge Amos Stuart at an existing factory located in King County, Washington, USA in 1899. The previous owners had been producing condensed milk – that is, milk which has been preserved by the addition of sugar – but when they went out of business Stuart took over the site. That was when Cheese John came up with the idea of sterilising the milk by subjecting it to high temperatures, thereby creating the first commercially-produced evaporated milk. Evaporated milk proved a real boon to householders at a time when fresh milk wasn’t always available or was unfit for human consumption.

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  Carnation Milk acquired its name thanks to a tobacconist’s window display. Company founder E. A. Stuart was thinking about a name for his new milk product when he spotted a cigar brand called Carnation. He thought it was a daft name for a cigar but apparently had no such reservations about applying it to tinned milk.

  Cheese John’s usefulness didn’t end there, as he also advised local dairymen about the best ways to produce the high yields of top-quality fresh milk that would be treated and turned into the evaporated product. Then, in 1910, the company established a farm which it stocked with prize Holsteins which went on to feature in Carnation’s famous advertisements as ‘contented cows’. In 1985 the Carnation brand was purchased by Nestlé.

  Colman’s Mustard – hot stuff since 1814

  Mustard has been appreciated in Britain since Roman times. By the seventeenth century the condiment’s punchy, powerful nature had led to the expression ‘as keen as mustard’ being used to describe characters who exhibited similar tendencies. History doesn’t record if condiment king Jeremiah Colman was himself hot stuff but he certainly had a sound business brain, as evidenced by the fact that the mustard manufacturing enterprise he established in 1814 is still going strong 200 years later.

  Colman was actually a flour miller when he acquired the existing mustard manufactory at Stoke Holy Cross, four miles south of Norwich. The business flourished and in 1823 Jeremiah took his oldest son, James, into partnership with him, forming the company J & J Colman. By 1851, the year Jeremiah died, Colman’s had a workforce of around 200 people. In 1856 the business began relocating to its present site at Carrow Works in Norwich. The lengthy process was completed in 1862 and in 1866 the cheery yellow and red livery of Colman’s Mustard first appeared on the product’s label. That same year the company was awarded a Royal Warrant by Queen Victoria who clearly believed the condiment more than cut the mustard. Colman’s retain the coveted Royal Warrant to this day.

  In 1903 Colman’s acquired a competitor, Keen & Sons of London, but contrary to popular belief this is not how the saying ‘keen as mustard’ originated; Keen’s Mustard did not appear on the market until 1742 whereas the first recorded use of the saying was in 1672.

  Another landmark in the company’s history came in 1938 when Colman’s merged with Reckitts of Hull, makers of many well-known household and pharmaceutical products. The new company was called Reckitts and Colman. In 1995, however, the Colman’s part of the business was bought by food leviathan Unilever which continues to own it today.

  Del Monte Canned Fruit – saying yes since the 1890s

  The man from Del Monte says yes. That was the strapline for a long-running (and much-parodied) series of television ads revolving around an elegant man wearing a tropical suit and panama hat. The man from Del Monte was shown arriving at a fruit plantation where he would closely examine the crop while the workforce looked on apprehensively. When he signified his approval by saying ‘yes’ all would break into delighted smiles because it meant their fruit had been found good enough to satisfy Del Monte’s stringent quality requirements.

  Funnily enough, although the name Del Monte has long been synonymous with canned fruit and vegetables, the brand actually owes its origins to a coffee blend. Back in 1886 the Oakland Preserving Company in California developed a high-quality coffee blend for the Hotel Del Monte on the Monterey peninsula. A few years later when the California Fruit Canners Association (CFCA) was formed with the Oakland Preserving Company as one of the founding members, the Del Monte name was adopted as a label for the CFCA’s premium products.

  After a series of complicated mergers and consolidations, a major food conglomeration called Calpak emerged in 1916 and once again its premium brands were labelled Del Monte. The Great Depression brought hard times to Calpak but by the late 1940s the company was enjoying much greater prosperity thanks to the increased consumption of canned goods. In 1967 Calpak changed its name to Del Monte Corporation and some twelve years later it was acquired by RJR Nabisco. Since 2011, Del Monte Foods has been owned by an investor group led by KKR & Co. L.P.

  Did you know …?

  Brian Jackson, the English actor who played ‘the man from Del Monte’ in the television ads, once starred opposite the legendary Ginger Rogers in the musical Mame at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

  Fray Bentos Pies – canning pies since 1961

  It might intrigue aficionados of Fray Bentos pies to learn that the meaty products they enjoy are named after a small town in Uruguay in which they were first produced. The town’s original name was Villa Independencia but it changed sometime after the establishment of a food company called Société de Fray Bentos Giebert & Cie.

  The Fray Bentos story began as the result of a collaboration between two Germans, one a distinguished chemist called Justus von Liebig and an engineer called George Giebert. In 1840 Liebig had invented a concentrated beef extract which he was unable to produce commercially because of the prohibitive cost of European beef. Hearing about Liebig’s dilemma, Giebert told him about the prodigious waste of cattle flesh occurring at that time in Uruguay and Argentina, as a result of the animals being slaughtered for their hides alone.

  Together Liebig and Giebert founded a company in Fray Bentos and began producing Liebig’s Extract of Meat, using every part of the animal apart from its moo. A few years later they branched out into corned beef production which they sold under the Fray Bentos label. About twenty-five years later a modified version of Liebig’s Extract of Meat was marketed under a new name, OXO (see OXO entry).

  Fray Bentos tinned meat pies were launched in 1961. Ownership of the Fray Bentos brand has changed several times over the years, most recently passing in 2011 from Premier Foods to Princes and then almost immediately from Princes to Baxters. In April 2013 production began at the Baxters plant in Fochabers, Scotland, having relocated from Long Sutton in Lincolnshire.

  Did you know …?

  Fray Bentos translates from Spanish into English as Friar Benedict. The Benedict in question is said to have been a reclusive hermit who once inhabited the area in which Fray Bentos pies were made.

  HP Sauce – a bit on the side since 1895

  The story of HP Sauce could be read as a salutary lesson to would-be entrepreneurs that creating a best-selling brand is no guarantee of wealth. Just ask Frederick Gibson Garton, the Nottinghamshire sauce manufacturer who settled a debt by giving away the recipes and rights to some sauces of his own devising including HP, Daddies and several lesser-known varieties.

  The son of a licensed victualler, Fred Garton had been developing his sauces for a few years when it became obvious that one showed real promise. When the rumour reached him in 1895 that this sauce – a vinegary concoction of garlic, shallots, ground mace, tomato puree, cayenne pepper, ground ginger, raisins, flour and salt – had been used in the Houses of Parliament, Mr Garton decided to call it Garton’s HP Sauce.

  However, Garton’s undoubted talent for sauces wasn’t matched by sou
nd business acumen because he had somehow managed to run up a debt of £150 with one of his suppliers, the Midlands Vinegar Company. It doesn’t sound a huge amount but back in 1899 it was a significant sum of money, roughly the equivalent of £13,500 today according to one inflation calculator. One day in 1899 Edwin Samson Moore, the owner of the Midlands Vinegar Company, came knocking on Mr Garton’s door. He was hoping to recoup his money but instead came away with a much more valuable asset, ownership of Garton’s sauces.

  With the HP brand under his belt, Moore set about turning his new acquisition into a household staple. His masterstroke was to put a picture of the Houses of Parliament onto every bottle, reinforcing the connection between the sauce and the seat of government. He also promoted it by travelling the country, dispensing free miniature bottles of HP Sauce from tiny wagons drawn by Shetland ponies. From such unlikely beginnings are iconic brands created.

  In due course the Midland Vinegar Company was renamed HP Foods and other lines were introduced. The company was acquired by Imperial Foods in 1967 and thereafter changed ownership several times before being bought by American food colossus Heinz in 2005. A year later production of the famous British brand moved from Birmingham to Holland. Today HP Sauce is exported to around seventy countries worldwide and some 28 million bottles are consumed annually. As for poor old Fred Garton, according to an interview given by his son John to the Nottingham Evening Post in 1986, the sauce was banned from his house and he refused to have it mentioned in his presence.

  Did you know …?

  John Betjeman immortalised HP Sauce in his 1958 poem, Lake District: