Batchelors is a popular brand of predominantly dried food products. The Batchelors company was founded in 1895 in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

, England by William Batchelor, initially specialising in canned vegetables. It released its first dried soup in 1949, and it started selling its convenience

Cup-a-Soup Cup-a-Soup is an instant soup product sold under various brands worldwide. The soup is sold in sachets of powder which can be poured into a mug or cup making it a drink, which is then filled with near-boiling water and stirred. In the United Ki ...

range in 1972. The company now makes pasta and rice dishes like Pasta 'n' Sauce and Super Rice along with instant soup, in particular Cup-a-Soup and noodle products such as Super Noodles. The company is the UK market leader in dried soups. Since early 2008, the Batchelors name has also been applied to

Premier Foods Premier Foods plc is a British food manufacturer headquartered in St Albans, Hertfordshire. The group owns many well-known brands, including Mr Kipling, Ambrosia (food), Ambrosia, Bird's Custard, Angel Delight, Homepride cooking sauces, J. Lyons ...

' condensed soup range, previously sold as

Campbell's The Campbell's Company (doing business as Campbell's and formerly known as the Campbell Soup Company) is an American company, most closely associated with its flagship canned soup products. The classic red-and-white can design used by many Campb ...

. The Campbell's brand returned to the UK in 2011, after a five-year non-compete agreement expired.

History

William Batchelor was born in

Habrough __NOTOC__ Habrough ( ) is a village and civil parish in North East Lincolnshire, England, north-west of Grimsby and inland from the Humber estuary at the southern edge of the A180 road, just west of Immingham and south of South Kill ...

, Lincolnshire, in 1860 to Ellen, née Hudson, and James Batchelor, a farmworker who later had his own farm. William discovered a way to can vegetables such as processed peas and formed Batchelors Foods in 1895. He died in August 1913 whilst on holiday in

Bridlington Bridlington (previously known as Burlington) is a seaside town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is on the Holderness part (Flamborough Head to the Humber estuary) of the Yorkshire Coast by the North Sea. The town is ...

, aged 53. His daughter Ella (who became Ella Gasking), 22 at the time, took over leadership of the company and developed it to include processed peas, with Batchelors eventually becoming a household name. Ella Hudson Gasking (1891–1966) often known as Mrs E. H. Gasking, took over the family business of Batchelor's Foods, opening a new factory at Wadsley Bridge,

in 1937 costing £100,000 to build. It was the largest canning plant in Britain, covering 12 acres including playing fields & speaker radios for staff. In 1943 Gasking was awarded an OBE in recognition of her contribution to the war effort and the grocery industry. Due to staff difficulties and

rationing Rationing is the controlled distribution (marketing), distribution of scarcity, scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resourc ...

in the

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

, the company was bought by James Van den Bergh of

Unilever Unilever PLC () is a British multinational consumer packaged goods company headquartered in London, England. It was founded on 2 September 1929 following the merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie with British soap maker Lever B ...

in 1943, where it became part of Van den Bergh Foods, later based in

Crawley Crawley () is a town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in West Sussex, England. It is south of London, north of Brighton and Hove, and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Crawley covers an area of and had a populat ...

. In 1948, Gasking retired and her younger brother Maurice Batchelor took over. The company took over Poulton and Noel, another soup company. In 1949, the first dried soup, chicken noodle flavour, was sold. In 1972, Cup-a-Soup was launched. In January 2001, Unilever took over Bestfoods. To be allowed to take over the American company, Unilever had to sell off some brands for monopoly regulation. It sold off Batchelors and Oxo to the UK subsidiary of the

Campbell Soup Company The Campbell's Company (doing business as Campbell's and formerly known as the Campbell Soup Company) is an American company, most closely associated with its flagship canned soup products. The classic red-and-white can design used by many Campbe ...

. Unilever retained ownership of the Cup-a-Soup brand in America and Australia, rebranding it under Lipton and Continental respectively. In 2006, Campbell's soup withdrew from the UK market, and sold its assets, including Batchelors, to

. The Campbell's name was licensed to Premier Foods until 2008, following which Campbell's Soup was rebranded as Batchelors. In 2008, Batchelors was rebranded with a new logo.

History

References

External links