Hovis facts for kids
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| Limited company | |
| Industry | Food |
| Founded | Macclesfield, Cheshire, United Kingdom (1886) |
| Headquarters | High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire |
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Key people
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Jon Jenkins CEO |
| Products | Bread, flour |
| Owner | Endless LLP |
Hovis Ltd is a well-known British company. It makes both flour and bread. The company started in Stoke-on-Trent. It began making a lot of products in Macclesfield, Cheshire, in 1886. Hovis became part of a bigger company called Rank Hovis McDougall (RHM) in 1962. This happened after several companies joined together. RHM, which owned brands like Hovis, was later bought by Premier Foods in 2007.
In April 2014, Hovis became its own limited company. This happened when Premier Foods sold a big part of the business (51%) to The Gores Group. They formed a joint company together. Then, in November 2020, both The Gores Group and Premier Foods sold their shares in Hovis. A British company called Endless LLP bought them.
Hovis is special because it uses flour with a lot of wheatgerm. This is a part of the wheat grain. Other bakeries then use this flour to bake the bread. Hovis also makes a bread called Nimble. This bread has fewer calories.
Contents
The Story of Hovis: How It Began
The Hovis brand started in 1886. Richard "Stoney" Smith (1836–1900) created the special Hovis process. He got a patent for it on October 6, 1887. A company called S. Fitton & Sons Ltd helped develop the brand. They milled the flour. They also sold it along with Hovis-branded baking tins to other bakers.
The name "Hovis" was chosen in 1890. A student from London named Herbert Grime came up with it. He won £25 in a national competition. S. Fitton & Sons Ltd held the contest. They wanted a good name for their special flour. This flour was rich in wheat germ. Grime got the name from a Latin phrase. The phrase was hominis vis, which means "the strength of man." The company officially became the Hovis Bread Flour Company Limited in 1898.
Hovis became even more popular in 1924. This was when people learned that wheatgerm had many important B vitamins.
Famous Hovis Adverts
In 1915, a railway company in London started its first electric trains. They used letters to identify trains. This made it easier for people to know which train was which. A 1926 Hovis advert showed five trains with the letters H ō V I S. The advert explained what each letter meant. This advert was seen everywhere on the railways.
One of the most famous Hovis adverts was in 1973. It was called Boy on the Bike. An advertising company created it. It was filmed by Jack Bankhead and directed by Ridley Scott. He later directed the movie Alien. The advert used music from Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9. This music was played by brass instruments.
The advert was filmed on Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset. Many people have voted it Britain's favorite advert ever. A special film copy was made new in 2019. You can see it in the BFI's Advertising Collection.
This advert was shown again on British television in May 2006. It ran for 10 days to celebrate Hovis's 120th birthday. The boy in the advert, Carl Barlow, was 13 years old then. He stopped acting and became a firefighter in East Ham in 1979.
In 2008, Hovis made a new advert called Go On Lad. It was different from the "boy on a bike" style. This advert looked back at 122 years of British history since Hovis started. The British public voted Go On Lad the "Advert of the Decade" in December 2009.
Hovis Map Books for Explorers
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Hovis Ltd. also printed a series of map books. These books included adverts for their products. In 1899, the company made eight map books. They covered England and Wales. These books were made for people who liked to cycle. In 1920, Hovis published Where to Go and How to Get There: Hovis Road Map of England, Wales and Scotland. Several versions of this book were printed later on.
Hovis Biscuits
Since 1980, Hovis has allowed another company, Jacob's, to make a digestive biscuit. These biscuits are branded as Hovis. They are now a United Biscuits product. The biscuits look like a small, flat copy of a traditional Hovis loaf. Just like the bread, they have the word "HOVIS" stamped on top.
Recycling Bread Bags
Hovis cares about the environment and being sustainable. They worked with TerraCycle on The Bread Bag Recycling Programme. The goal of this program is to help people recycle used bread bags. You can drop them off at special places across the UK. Or, you can mail them using services like UPS. All these locations are shown on an online map.
After collection, the bags are sent to a special plant to be recycled. People who join the program can earn TerraCycle points. These points can be used for gifts to charities. Or, they can be turned into a payment for a non-profit group.
