Ambrosia is a brand of food products in the United Kingdom. Its original product was a

dried milk Powdered milk, also called milk powder, dried milk, or dry milk, is a manufactured dairy product made by evaporating milk to dryness. One purpose of drying milk is to preserve it; milk powder has a far longer shelf life than liquid milk and do ...

powder for infants, but it is now mostly known for its

custard Custard is a variety of culinary preparations based on sweetened milk, cheese, or cream cooked with egg or egg yolk to thicken it, and sometimes also flour, corn starch, or gelatin. Depending on the recipe, custard may vary in consistency fro ...

and rice pudding. The brand plays on the fact that it is made in Devon, England, (at a factory in

Lifton Lifton may refer to: * Lifton, Devon, a village in England * Lifton Hundred, an ancient administrative unit * Lifton railway station * Barbara Lifton (born 1950/51), politician * David Lifton (born 1939), author * Jimmy Lifton (born 1955), musici ...

), with their original punning strapline ''"Devon knows how they make it so creamy"''.

History

The Ambrosia Creamery was founded in 1917 by Alfred Morris, in his home village

in Devon, to make rich food for infants. He took milk from local farms, where most of the cows were the Red Ruby breed, and dried it with roller dryers. The product soon came to the attention of the British armed forces, who took significant quantities for its soldiers, still fighting in the First World War. Just prior to the Second World War, the Ambrosia creamery was the first company to start making creamed rice pudding ready in a tin. Following the outbreak of war, the vast majority of production was placed in Red Cross food parcels. After the end of hostilities, Ambrosia relaunched the product, along with a creamed

macaroni Macaroni (, Italian: maccheroni) is dry pasta shaped like narrow tubes.Oxford DictionaryMacaroni/ref> Made with durum wheat, macaroni is commonly cut in short lengths; curved macaroni may be referred to as elbow macaroni. Some home machines ...

pudding. In 1957, following increasing demand, the creamery opened a new factory near to the original production facility. In 1990 the entire company was acquired by Colman's Ltd., a famous brand of mustard. This, in turn, was bought out by Unilever in 2001. Unilever sold the brand on in 2004, to Premier Foods, where it is still a core brand, alongside others such as

Bisto Bisto is a popular and well-known brand of gravy and other food products in the United Kingdom and Ireland, currently owned by Premier Foods. History The first Bisto product, in 1908, was a meat-flavoured gravy powder which rapidly became a best ...

, Oxo and

Sharwood's Sharwood's is a British food company, which specialises in Asian food, established in 1889 and acquired by RHM in 1963, which was then merged into Premier Foods in March 2007. Company products The company produces Indian, Chinese and South East ...

. In November 2018, Premier Foods announced that they were investigating the sale of the Ambrosia factory and brand in a move to focus on its growing brands, such as

Batchelors Batchelors is a popular brand of predominantly dried food products. The Bachelors company was founded in 1895 in Sheffield, England by William Batchelor, initially specialising in canned vegetables. It released its first dried soup in 1949, an ...

and Mr Kipling, and to accelerate the rate at which it pays down its £510m debt. This sale offer was later withdrawn.

Marketing

In the late 1990s, there were commercials on the Ambrosia splat custards which featured custard splatting into the face of a man who licks it off and replies "Mmmm; strawberry/banana/chocolate flavour" and finally, the end of the theme from

Roobarb ''Roobarb'' (also known as ''Roobarb and Custard'') is a British animated children's television series, created by Grange Calveley and originally shown on BBC1 just before the evening news. Each cartoon, written by Calveley and directed by Bob ...

can be heard. In 1999 Ambrosia launched Ambrosia Splat Custard, aimed at young children. As part of their marketing, they sponsored a popular Saturday-morning kids' TV show SMTV Live, and, in 2002,

Panto.ie Alan Hughes (born 19 October 1963) is an Irish television personality, pantomime actor and producer. He works for Virgin Media and appears on ''Ireland AM''. He also hosted ''Family Fortunes'' from 2012 to 2014. In the 1990s, he hosted RTÉ quiz ...

's annual pantomime in Dublin. As of the release of Ambrosia Rice pots in 2012, the slogan was changed to "''Devon knows it's unbelievably good''".

References

{{Reflist

External links

Brand websitePremier Foods website
Food manufacturers of the United Kingdom

Ambrosia In the ancient Greek myths, ''ambrosia'' (, grc, ἀμβροσία 'immortality'), the food or drink of the Greek gods, is often depicted as conferring longevity or immortality upon whoever consumed it. It was brought to the gods in Olympus ...

Companies based in Devon British brands