Ranks Hovis McDougall
Ranks Hovis McDougall was a United Kingdom food business, later known by its initials RHM.
1962, under the leadership of J. Arthur Rank, Ranks Limited acquired the Hovis-McDougall Co and became Ranks Hovis McDougall.
It owned a number of leading brands including:
- Be-Ro Flour
- Hovis bread and flour
- Mr Kipling cakes
- Mother's Pride bread
- Cadbury's cakes (manufactured under licence from Cadbury Schweppes)
- Atora shredded suet
- McDougalls flour and cake mixes
- Robertson's jams
- Frank Cooper's jams
- Rombouts coffee
1967 Opened new premises at the Group Research Centre at High Wycombe.
1968 Acquired Cerebos in an agreed take-over[1]. As well as being involved in agricultural products and raw materials, Cerebos owned brands such as Cerebos and Saxa salt, Bisto gravy, Paxo stuffing, Brands soups and pastes, Scott's porridge oats, Crampton gravy browning, Hugon (Atora) shredded suets, Sharwood's Indian, Chinese and SE Asian sauces, Stamina pet foods[2].
1969 The marketing of three companies in RHM was coordinated - namely Scotts-Energen Foods, Cerebos Foods and McDougall Foods[3]
1970 The RHM Research Centre at High Wycombe employed 200 scientists and technicians; work on food preservation and freeze drying, on convenience foods and in extended pilot plant facilities; also had opened plant studies laboratory to work on disease resistance in cereals; a commercial pilot at Ashford would demonstrate the processing of wheat into gluten and sugars; long-term project to produce protein from starch by fermentation had reached lab. pilot trial stage[4].
1971 Publicity for annual results described group as RHM Ranks Hovis McDougall
1972 Spillers acquired the business of Stamina Foods from Ranks Hovis McDougall for £lM. Stamina Foods was purchased for its 'own label' business; its factory at St Helens was closed prior to acquisition and the use of its brand names 'Stamina' and Taws' was subsequently discontinued.
1972 The initials RHM were used more widely in describing the group; Joseph Rank Ltd was renamed RHM Flour Mills Ltd; British Bakeries Ltd renamed RHM Bakeries Ltd[5].
1977 Acquired US company Red Wing which was RHM's largest US investment[6].
1978 Acquired the baking operation of Spillers French Holdings
Late 1980s J. Lyons and Co sold Lyons Cakes to RHM; it ended up as part of RHM’s Manor Bakeries subsidiary, which also made Mr Kipling's Cakes.
1987 Acquired Avana Group, own-label baker[7]
1990 Sold S. and A. Lesme, bulk chocolate maker of Banbury, to the Van Houten division of Jacob Suchard[8]
1992 Purchased by Tomkins plc; RHM was delisted from the London Stock Exchange for a period of 13 years until, under new management, the company was again listed on the LSE in July 2005.
March 2007, the entire share capital was bought by rival Premier Foods and RHM ceased to exist as an independent entity
2015 Operations at Middlewich, Cheshire
See Also
Sources of Information
- [1] Wikipedia