of 34 Victoria Street, London
Hovis is a UK brand of flour and bread, now owned by Premier Foods.
- 1886 Richard "Stoney" Smith (1836-1900) developed a method of including the wheatgerm in the bread, something which had traditionally been excluded by bakers. He collaborated with Thomas Fitton, a Macclesfield miller whose company S. Fitton and Sons developed the brand, milled the flour and sold it to other bakers (along with, later, Hovis branded baking tins).
- 1887 The process was patented on 6 October 1887.
- 1895 The name "Hovis" was invented by London student Herbert Grimes in a national competition set by S. Fitton and Sons to find a trading name for their bread, which used a patent flour that was rich in wheat germ. Grimes coined the word from the Latin phrase hominis vis – "the strength of man".
- 1898 The Hovis-Bread Flour Co was registered on 2 February, to acquire the milling and flour business of S. Fitton and Son. [1]
- 1918 They became Hovis Limited.
- In 1957, McDougalls merged with Hovis to form Hovis-McDougall.
- 1962 Hovis-McDougall was taken over by Ranks Ltd to become part of the new group Rank Hovis McDougall, now the quoted food conglomerate RHM, which also owns the Mothers Pride and Nimble bread brands. The bread making division has been known as British Bakeries since 1955.
See Also
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Sources of Information
- ↑ The Stock Exchange Year Book 1908
- [1] Wikipedia