Pork Farms facts for kids

Pork Farms is a British company that makes and sells tasty bakery products, mostly with pork. It started as a small pie shop in Nottingham, England, way back in 1931. Over the years, the company grew a lot. It even became a public company in 1971, meaning its shares could be bought and sold. Since 2017, Pork Farms has been owned by a company called Lloyds Development Capital.

How Pork Farms Started

In the early 1940s, a talented baker named Ken Parr got a loan to open his own pie shop. He became well-known for his excellent baking. Ken created a special pork pie recipe, which had a unique dark and crispy pastry. Later, he bought another local pie shop that had been founded in 1931. This shop was already called Pork Farms, and Ken decided to use that name for all his shops.

Growing the Business

In the mid-1960s, a big food business owner named W. Garfield Weston bought Ken Parr's company. Ken Parr then became the Chairman of the company. In 1969, another pie company in Nottingham, TN Parr, bought Pork Farms. This brought the two companies together under the Pork Farms name.

In 1972, Pork Farms bought another well-known pie company called Holland's Pies. By 1971, the whole group of companies was listed on the London Stock Exchange as Pork Farms Ltd. This meant people could buy shares in the company.

Changes and Mergers

In 1974, Pork Farms and another food company, Northern Foods, started a joint business called Porkdown Ltd. Their goal was to supply meat products to a French food group called Danone. However, soon after they started, Danone decided to focus only on their milk products. This meant they ended their contract with Porkdown.

Because of this, Porkdown lost money and eventually closed. In 1978, Pork Farms was sold to Northern Foods. Northern Foods then combined Pork Farms with two other companies: Palethorpes and Bowyers. This new, bigger company was called Pork Farms Bowyers.

In 2001, Pork Farms Bowyers sold the pork sausage parts of Bowyers and Palethorpes. They wanted to focus more on making baked meat products like pies and sausage rolls.

New Ownership and Investments

In 2007, a company called Vision Capital bought Pork Farms. At this time, new rules from the European Union said that Melton Mowbray Pork Pies had to be made very close to the town of Melton Mowbray. Because of this, Pork Farms closed its plant in Trowbridge. They then invested £12 million into their Nottingham factory to make more Melton Mowbray pies there. By 2010, the company had over 2,000 employees working in five different locations across England.

In 2011, Pork Farms celebrated its 80th birthday! To mark this special occasion, they spent £1 million on a new look for their products and launched a new range of slices. Their packaging proudly said 'Making & Baking since 1931' and 'Butchers, Bakers, Master Piemakers'.

In 2014, Pork Farms planned to buy two more pastry-making factories from Kerry Group. These factories were in Spalding and Poole. The sale was approved in 2015 after a review by the Competition and Markets Authority. In the same year, Vision Capital put Pork Farms together with other chilled pastry brands to form a new group called Addo Food Group.

Pork Farms Today

In 2017, Addo Food Group, which included Pork Farms, was sold to another private investment company called Lloyds Development Capital. Pork Farms continues to make and sell its popular bakery products today.