Clover Leaf Seafoods Company is the leading marketer of canned

seafood Seafood is any form of sea life regarded as food by humans, prominently including fish and shellfish. Shellfish include various species of molluscs (e.g. bivalve molluscs such as clams, oysters and mussels, and cephalopods such as octopus an ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Headquartered in

Markham, Ontario Markham () is a city in the Regional Municipality of York, Ontario, Canada. It is approximately northeast of Downtown Toronto. In the 2021 Census, Markham had a population of 338,503, which ranked it the largest in York Region, fourth largest ...

, it sells canned, shelf-stable, and frozen goods under the Clover Leaf and Brunswick brands. The company's products include tuna, salmon, oysters, mussels, clams, shrimp, crab, lobster and sardines. Clover Leaf Seafoods, a wholly owned subsidiary of Connors Bros., L.P., markets Bumble Bee (USA) Seafoods. The Clover Leaf brand has been used to market canned seafood products in Canada since 1889 when it was introduced by the Anglo-American Packing Company.

History

Clover Leaf Seafoods traces its roots back to 1871 when Alexander Ewen and three partners founded Loggie & Company, the first commercial

salmon cannery A salmon cannery is a factory that commercially cans salmon. It is a fish-processing industry that became established on the Pacific coast of North America during the 19th century, and subsequently expanded to other parts of the world that had e ...

in British Columbia, Canada. The cannery was located on the south shore of the

Fraser River The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annual d ...

opposite New Westminster on a site that's now part of

North Delta North Delta (founded as Annieville) is a largely middle-class commuter town situated in the Lower Mainland, of British Columbia, Canada. The community is the most populous of the three communities (North Delta, Ladner, and Tsawwassen) that mak ...

(founded as Annieville). In 1902, Loggie & Company merged with some of its local competitors to form the British Columbia Packers' Association, which was chartered as a New Jersey-based entity to take advantage of the state's favourable trust laws. Ewen emerged as the company's largest shareholder and first president. In 1908, a year after Ewen's death at age 74, the company purchased the Clover Leaf brand and began selling its canned salmon under the newly acquired

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from others ...

. Clover Leaf had been introduced in Canada in 1889 by the Anglo-American Packing Company to sell canned mackerel, among other products. In 1928, the British Columbia Packers' Association merged with Gosse Packing Company Ltd. and was federally incorporated in Canada as British Columbia Packers Limited (BC Packers). The consolidated entity consisted of 44 canneries, three cold storage facilities, five plants and shipyards, two salteries and more than 100 fishing boats, packers and coastal tenders. Up until 1945, BC Packer's fishery operations were focused on the

British Columbia Coast , settlement_type = Region of British Columbia , image_skyline = , nickname = "The Coast" , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = British ...

. Post World War II, the company expanded rapidly, opening new Canadian facilities in Ontario and

Atlantic Canada Atlantic Canada, also called the Atlantic provinces (french: provinces de l'Atlantique), is the region of Eastern Canada comprising the provinces located on the Atlantic coast, excluding Quebec. The four provinces are New Brunswick, Newfoundlan ...

and foreign facilities in coastal areas of the United States, Mexico and Southeast Asia. In 1962,

George Weston Limited George Weston Limited, often referred to as Weston or Weston's, is a Canadian food processing and distribution company. Founded by George Weston in 1882, the company today consists of Weston Foods, a wholly owned subsidiary, and Loblaw Companie ...

acquired BC Packers and its Clover Leaf brand. Five years later, in 1967, it also acquired Connors Bros., makers of Brunswick Sardines and Seafood Snacks. The end of the 20th century and the first decade of the new millennium brought a number of ownership changes for Clover Leaf. In 1998, George Weston sold the Clover Leaf brand and associated trademarks to

International Home Foods International Home Foods (IHF) was an American manufacturer, distributor and marketer of food products, based in Parsippany, New Jersey. It was acquired in 2000 by ConAgra Foods and merged into ConAgra's Grocery Products division. IHF's best kno ...

, which established Clover Leaf Seafoods as a separate legal entity. Shortly thereafter, International Home Foods rolled Clover Leaf into its U.S. canned seafood division,

Bumble Bee A bumblebee (or bumble bee, bumble-bee, or humble-bee) is any of over 250 species in the genus ''Bombus'', part of Apidae, one of the bee families. This genus is the only Extant taxon, extant group in the tribe Bombini, though a few extinct r ...

. Subsequently, in 2001,

ConAgra Conagra Brands, Inc. (formerly ConAgra Foods) is an American consumer packaged goods holding company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Conagra makes and sells products under various brand names that are available in supermarkets, restaurants, ...

purchased International Home Foods, acquiring the Clover Leaf/Bumble Bee seafood division as part of the transaction. In 2003, ConAgra sold the division to a senior management group. A year later, Clover Leaf/Bumble Bee merged with Connors Bros. to create Connors Bros. Income Fund, North America's largest branded-seafood company. In 2008, Connors Bros. was acquired by U.S. private equity firm Centre Partners. In 2010, Centre Partners sold Connors Bros. to British private-equity firm Lion Capital LLP.

References

{{reflist Companies based in Markham, Ontario Private equity portfolio companies Seafood companies of Canada Food product brands Canned food Fish processing companies

History

See also

References