Grace's Guide
British Industrial History
Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 146,061 pages of information and 231,597 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.
Imperial Foods
From Graces Guide
The food division of Imperial Tobacco Group
1969 Headquarters was in Leamington Spa[1]
1969 Acquired Ross Group
Also owned Lea and Perrins, including HP Sauce, and Golden Wonder
1972 Sold A. H. Allen and Co, steel stockholders and engineer's merchants, to British Steam Specialities[2]
1972 Merged its Smedley's and HP Foods subsidiaries as Smedley-H.P. Foods[3]
1972 Ross Poultry was a subsidiary[4]
1974 Acquired Pillsbury Farms of USA[5]. The company's computer bureau was located at Grimsby, operated by Lindum Information Systems[6]
1977 Formation of a new subsidiary Ross Buxted Nitrovit, responsible for Ross Poultry, Buxted Poultry, Nitrovit[7]
1978 Other subsidiaries were Daylay Eggs and Eastwood Thompson[8] and J. B. Eastwood, egg producers.
1981 Formation of TKM Foods from the merger of 2 canned fruit and vegetable companies: Smedley's, part of Imperial Foods and Tozer, Kemsley and Millbourn (Holdings)[9]
1982 Imperial Group sold its UK chicken and egg, animal feed and meat trading operations to Hillsdown Holdings, including Allied Farm Foods, Buxted Poultry, Eastwood Thompson and J. B. Eastwood[10]
1986 Imperial Group was acquired by Hanson Trust