Fox's Biscuits is a British biscuit manufacturer, founded by the Fox family in a terraced house, 17 Whitaker Street,

Batley Batley is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England. Batley lies south-west of Leeds, north-west of Wakefield and Dewsbury, south-east of Bradford and north-east of Huddersfield. Batley is part of the ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

in 1853. The head office and main factory are based in the town and has another site in Wesham in

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

. Its biscuits are exported to Europe, North America, and Asia. The house in Whittaker Street still stands. The company was purchased by

Northern Foods Northern Foods is a British food manufacturer headquartered in Wakefield, England. It was formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the original FTSE 100 Index. The company is credited, together with Marks & Spencer, ...

in 1977, which was acquired by 2 Sisters Food Group in 2011. In October 2020

Ferrero Ferrero (Italian: , Spanish: ) is a surname of Italian (from Piedmont) and Spanish origin that means 'smith', the person who works with iron, in parallel with surnames like Ferraro, Ferrari and Smith. Notable people with the surname Ferrero inclu ...

bought Fox's Biscuits for £246 million. The business is known for mass-market and chocolate-covered biscuit bars such as Rocky, Classic, Echo, Crunch Creams and children's favourite Party Rings. The company also makes own brand biscuit products for a number of supermarkets and makes Farley's Rusks for Heinz.

History

The company was founded in 1853 by Michael Spedding, who worked from his small bakehouse in

making "eatables" to sell at feasts and fairs held throughout the north of England. His daughter Hannah provided the name for the company when she married Fred Ellis Fox in the late 1800s. The bakery moved to former wartime allotments site in Batley in 1927. In 1960 it became a limited company and was named Fox's Biscuits. The Uttoxeter site was operated as Elkes Biscuits before merging in 2003. In September 2013, the

Yorkshire Society The Yorkshire Society is a non-political organisation founded in December 1980. It extended the philosophies of an earlier Yorkshire Society which, in 1818, wished to encourage people born, working or living in the County of Yorkshire to join an ...

unveiled a

White Rose The White Rose (german: Weiße Rose, ) was a Nonviolence, non-violent, intellectual German resistance to Nazism, resistance group in Nazi Germany which was led by five students (and one professor) at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, ...

plaque at the site of the first bakery on Whitaker Street: the first time that the society had presented a plaque to commemorate the formation of a business. In 2020, Fox's Biscuits won the Lausanne Index Prize - Bronze Award.

Vinnie

On 28 May 2008, Fox's Biscuits launched a TV ad campaign and £5 million marketing campaign centred on "Vinnie", a "danda", cross between a dog and a panda, meant to be Fox's "number one fan" who had travelled across the Atlantic to make sure everybody knew who makes his favourite biscuits (which he mispronounces with a "w" instead of a "u"). The idea of Vinnie was developed with the animation team behind

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

's ''

The Chronicles of Narnia ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' is a series of seven high fantasy novels by British author C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes and originally published between 1950 and 1956, ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' has been adapted for radio, telev ...

''.

Biscuit products

The company website contains nutritional and allergy information as well as descriptions of each product. The biscuits currently manufactured by Fox's are: *Rocky (Chocolate, Caramel, Orange imited Edition Crispy Crunch) *Rocky Chockas (Double Choc, Toffee, Honeycomb) *Rocky Rocks (Chocolate or Crispy Crunch) *Echo (Mint, Orange, Chocolate) *Classic *Cookie Bars *Triple *Viennese (Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate) *Millionaire's Shortcake *Shortcake Rounds *Extremely Chocolatey Cookie *Chunk Cookie (Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, White Chocolate) *Crunch Creams (Ginger, Golden, Chocolate Fudge, Classic, Double Choc) *Creams (Rich Tea, Jam Ring, Malted Milk, Nice, Classic) *Crinkles (Butter, Ginger, Coconut, Milk Chocolate) *Dunkers (Oaty, Shortcake) *Sports *Party Rings *Minis (Buttery and Oaty) *Bourbon biscuit *Creations *Speciality *Speciality Brandy Snaps *Favourites *Luxury Chocolate Carton *Wholemeal Cracker (Original, Tomato & Red Pepper, Cheese & Onion and Sunflower Seed & Honey)

References

External links

*{{Official website, http://www.foxs-biscuits.co.uk Bakeries of the United Kingdom Food brands of the United Kingdom Northern Foods Companies based in Kirklees Biscuit brands 1977 mergers and acquisitions 2011 mergers and acquisitions 2020 mergers and acquisitions

History

Vinnie

Biscuit products

See also

References

External links