Batchelors
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For unrelated subjects with similar spelling see Bachelor.
Batchelors is a brand of predominantly dried food products. The company makes instant soup, in particular Cup A Soup and noodle products such as Super Noodles. The company is the UK market leader in dried soups. The most popular flavour Cup A Soup is Chicken.
[edit] History
William Batchelor was born in Sheffield, to Zechariah Batchelor who was a grocer from Camp Lane in Sheffield. William discovered a way to can vegetables such as mushy peas and formed Batchelors Foods in 1895. Whilst on holiday in Bridlington he died in August 1913, aged 53. His daughter Ella (who became Ella Gasking), aged 22, took over leadership of the company and developed it to include processed peas, eventually becoming a household name.
Due to staff difficulties and rationing in the war, the company was bought by James Van den Bergh of Unilever in 1943, where it became part of Van den Bergh Foods (later based in Crawley). In 1948, Ella Gaskin retired and her younger brother Maurice Batchelor took over. The company took over Poulton and Noel, another soup company. In 1949, the first dried soup, chicken noodle flavour, was sold. In 1972, Cup A Soup was launched.
In January 2001, Unilever took over Bestfoods. To be allowed to take over the American company, Unilever had to sell off some brands for monopoly regulation. It sold off Batchelors and Oxo to Campbell Soup UK.
Unilever retained ownership of the 'cup-a-soup' brand in America and Australia, rebranding them under Lipton and Continental respectively.
In 2006, Campbell's soup withdrew from the UK market, and sold its assets, including Batchelor's, to Premier Foods.
