Mr Kipling is a

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...

cake Cake is a flour confection usually made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elabor ...

pie A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), fruit preserves ( jam tart ...

s and baked goods made in Carlton, South Yorkshire and

Stoke-on-Trent Stoke-on-Trent (often abbreviated to Stoke) is a city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England. It has an estimated population of 259,965 as of 2022, making it the largest settlement in Staffordshire ...

, and marketed in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and North America. It was introduced in May 1967 (at a time when cakes were more often bought from local bakers), to sell cakes of a local baker's standard to

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. Strictly speaking, a supermarket is larger and has a wider selecti ...

s, and grew to become the United Kingdom's largest cake manufacturer by 1976.Mr Kipling Press Information Pack. 2002 Mr Kipling's Cakes were made by the RHM subsidiary known as Manor Bakeries Ltd. which also produced products under the

Lyons Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

and Cadbury names. The Cadbury cakes are produced under licence from Cadbury plc, the owners of the brand name.

Branding

The brand was created in the 1960s by Rank Hovis McDougall, which wanted to boost cake sales and utilise a new bakery. The brand was launched in 1967 and included 20 products sold in premium boxes. The name, Mr. Kipling, was invented for marketing purposes. With advertising using the phrase "exceedingly good cakes", and television adverts which originally featured the voice of actor James Hayter, the brand had become the market leader in the United Kingdom by 1976, a position it still holds over forty years later. Varieties of single-serving and individually wrapped cakes have also been marketed. Around 2005, the manufacturers briefly experimented with another new logo and a striking pack design: pack-fronts simply consisting of the words "Mr Kipling", the name of the cake, and the phrase "Exceedingly good cakes" in a more formal, classic typeface; the only image of the cake on each pack-front was a close-up of one part of it, used as a background image for the entire pack. Around the same time, the write-ups on the back of their packaging once again purported to be written by the person of Mr Kipling. Shortly afterwards, however, the pack design and brand image wholeheartedly returned to its roots. The logo introduced at the time was very closely based on the original one, featuring a traditional-style font in a gold-edged shape, the packs feature images of the cake(s), and various product features and write-ups are featured on the pack-front. In 2009, the pack designs were slightly revamped, with more emphasis put on the name of each product; the write-ups on the back of the pack no longer purport to be written by Mr Kipling. Premier Foods also introduced what it termed 'Snap Pack' packaging (now renamed 'Snack Pack'), providing cakes in individually sealed plastic packs to keep them fresh. It quickly became a top-seller for the brand. In 2018, the brand redesigned their packaging for the North American and Australian markets. The new design aimed for a more contemporary and distinctive look to attract new customers, steering away from Mr. Kipling's heritage. However, Mr. Kipling's wordmark logo remained the same. Furthermore, the brand's UK slogan "exceedingly good cakes" was replaced with "make every day delicious" for the international market.

Products

Mr. Kipling's signature product range includes:

Slices

* Almond slices * Carrot cake slices * Angel slices * Lemon layered slices * Bakewell slices * Chocolate slices * Country slices * Unicorn slices * Trifle tarts (since 1990) * Victoria slices * Banana (minion) slices

Pies and Tarts

* Bramley apple & blackcurrant pies * Bramley apple pies * Mini fruit pie selections * Cherry bakewells * Mini bakewells selections * Jam tarts * Mini sponge tart selections

Goodies

* French fancies * Lemon fancies

Biscuits

* Viennese whirls

Cakes

* Manor house cake * Battenberg * Mini battenbergs

French Fancies

Mr Kipling French Fancies are small

sponge cake Sponge cake is a light cake made with egg whites, flour and sugar, sometimes leavened with baking powder. Some sponge cakes do not contain egg yolks, like angel food cake, but most do. Sponge cakes, leavened with beaten eggs, originated during ...

s, topped with a hemisphere of vegetable-oil "

buttercream Buttercream, also referred to as butter icing (food), icing or butter frosting, is used for either filling (cooking), filling, coating or cake decorating, decorating cakes. The main ingredients are butter and some type of sugar. Buttercream is ...

". The cakes are coated with

fondant icing Fondant icing, also commonly just called fondant (, ; ), is an icing used to decorate or sculpt cakes and pastries. It is made from sugar, water, gelatin, vegetable oil or shortening, and glycerol. It does not have the texture of most icings; ...

, with several varieties drizzled with a second colour. Standard varieties are pink ("vanilla") with white drizzle, yellow ("lemon") with brown drizzle, and brown (chocolate) with dark brown drizzle. While cocoa is cited in the ingredients list, strawberry and lemon are not. The cakes are 30% sugar. French Fancies were among the 20 varieties of cake that were part of the initial Mr Kipling launch in 1967. In September 2008, Mr Kipling announced the Big French Fancy, a large cake which can be sliced into portions. A limited edition appeared in 2012, renamed British Fancies, containing cakes in red, white and blue. Supermarket and home-made copies are called Fondant Fancies.

References

External links

*
Premier Foods website
{{Pies Bakeries of the United Kingdom Food brands of the United Kingdom British pie brands Food and drink companies established in 1967 English cuisine Food manufacturers of the United Kingdom Premier Foods brands 1967 establishments in England