Chivers and Sons facts for kids
Chivers is a well-known brand that makes delicious jams and fruit preserves. For a long time in the 1900s, Chivers and Sons was the biggest company making preserves in Britain. Today, a company called the Boyne Valley Group owns the Chivers brand. They continue to make a variety of tasty preserves using the Chivers name.
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How Chivers Began
The Chivers family had lived in Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, for many years. In the early 1800s, John Chivers moved his family to Histon. His three sons, Philip, Stephen, and Thomas, all became market gardeners. This meant they grew fruits and vegetables to sell.
In 1847, a railway station opened in Histon. Stephen Chivers, one of John's sons, saw a great chance with the railway. In 1850, he bought an orchard next to the tracks. He started a business distributing fruit, which grew to cover 150 acres by 1860.
In 1870, Stephen sent his teenage sons, William and John, to open a fruit distribution center in Bradford. The sons noticed that most of their fruit was bought by jam makers. So, in 1873, after a huge fruit harvest, they convinced their father to let them try making their own jam. They made their first batch in a barn near Impington.
By 1875, they opened the Victoria Works next to Histon railway station. This helped them make jam even better. They first sold jam in stone jars, then started using glass jars in 1885. Around 1885, they had about 150 employees.
Growing Bigger and Better
Over the next ten years, Chivers started making marmalade. This was great because marmalade could be made all year, not just during fruit harvest. This meant they could hire staff full-time instead of only seasonally.
After marmalade, they added clear dessert jelly in 1889. Then came lemonade, mincemeat, custard powder, and Christmas puddings. By 1896, the family owned 500 acres of fruit orchards.
In 1895, they began selling their products in cans. Charles Lack, their chief engineer, helped them grow quickly. He created the best canning machines in Europe. By the end of the 1800s, Chivers was one of the largest preserve makers in the world. He also invented machines for sorting fruit, making cans, and sealing jars. These inventions helped Chivers stay ahead of other companies for many years.
By the early 1900s, the factory was completely self-sufficient. This means they grew all their own fruit and even supplied their own water and electricity. The factory also made its own cans and had workshops for blacksmiths, carpenters, and painters.
On March 14, 1901, the company officially became S. Chivers and Sons. They started exporting their products to other countries. By this time, they employed over 1,000 people.
A Time of Great Success
After the First World War, John's son, Stanley Chivers, took over the company. By then, Chivers was a complete farming operation that supplied the factory. The Chivers family saw themselves as farmers first, with the factories as a second business.
They grew plums and other soft fruits for jam and canned fruit. They also raised cows and pigs and grew corn to make fertilizer for the land. Chickens were kept in the orchards to help fertilize the soil, and their eggs were used to make lemon curd in the factory. They used strong Percheron horses to pull carts and plows, but they were also early users of tractors.
By 1939, Chivers had over 3,000 full-time employees. They had offices in East Anglia and factories in Montrose, Newry, and Huntingdon. The company owned almost 8,000 acres of farms. Each farm was run separately and grew cereals and raised special livestock, as well as the fruit they were famous for.
During the Second World War, the Histon factory and its 2,200 employees became very important. They started making blackcurrant purée. This was because research in the 1930s showed that blackcurrants were a great source of vitamin C.
By 1947, their most popular products included jams, jellies, and "Olde English Marmalade." They also made baking powder, ground coffee, vegetables, apple juice, mincemeat, honey, and jelly crystals. They even held the patent for the special replaceable metal lid used on their glass jam jars.
The Chivers family was known for being good to their employees. In 1891, they started a pioneering profit-sharing plan. This meant employees got a share of the company's profits. In the early 1900s, they added a factory nurse, a medical room, and canteens. In 1933, they started offering pensions to help employees save for retirement. The company had very few problems with trade unions and no major worker disputes until it was sold in 1959.
Sale and Factory Changes
After 1945, Chivers' sales started to drop, and they lost their top spot in the market. They didn't update their factory with newer machines, which led to further decline. In 1959, with only 1,500 employees, the farms and factories were sold to a Swiss drinks company called Schweppes. The factories later became part of Cadbury Schweppes when Schweppes was bought by them. In 1961, the Chivers family bought back most of the farms they had sold just two years earlier.
The old factory closed in the 1980s. In 1986, the site was sold to developers. A new factory was built nearby by new owners, Premier Foods. This new factory made products like Sun-Pat peanut butter, Smash instant mashed potatoes, Gale's honey, and Hartley's jam. The original Chivers factory was torn down, and the land was used to build a business park called Vision Park.
In 2004, Premier Foods announced they would no longer use the Chivers name on their products. Instead, they would sell their jam and marmalade under the Hartley's brand. This jam continued to be made in Histon, employing nearly 400 people. In 2007, Premier Foods closed another factory in Coolock, leading to job losses.
In 2011, Premier Foods sold the Chivers brand to the Boyne Valley Group. Then, in 2012, Premier Foods sold the Hartley's brand and the Histon factory to Hain Celestial.
