Aunt Bessie's Limited (until 2008 known as Tryton Foods Ltd) is a UK producer of

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products under the brand name Aunt Bessie's. The company produces frozen Yorkshire puddings, potato products, meal accompaniments, ready meals, vegetables and desserts. The company has its factories in Hull and employs over 350 staff.

History

Aunt Bessie's Limited was, until 2018, a subsidiary to the William Jackson Food Group, a food retail and manufacturing business founded in Hull in 1851. The current chairman, Nicholas Oughtred, is the great-great-grandson of the founder, William Jackson. The William Jackson Group's frozen Yorkshire puddings were originally created for Butlins Holiday Camps in 1974. In 1995, the company started producing its Yorkshire puddings for British supermarket chains under the label Aunt Bessie's, so a special food manufacturing company was set up, called Tryton Foods. However, market research revealed that the name ''Triton'' was associated by the public with items such as "...either with bathrooms and showers or inter-continental ballistic missiles." So the name was changed to Aunt Bessie's as a marketing ploy. Aunt Bessie's frozen roast potatoes were introduced in 1999 and were one of a number of products including chips and croquettes that had been manufactured under licence by

Heinz The Kraft Heinz Foods Company, formerly the H. J. Heinz Company and commonly known as Heinz (), is an American food processing company headquartered at One PPG Place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company was founded by Henry J. Heinz in 1869. ...

at their factory in Norfolk until the contract for the deal ended in 2015.

Business development

By 2001 the retail value of the brand was over £50 million and it had become one of the top 100 brands in Britain. As the fastest growing frozen food brand its value had grown to £110 million by 2014 and in consumer surveys it had a recognition score of 70%. In August 2004, the supermarket division of the William Jackson company, Jacksons Stores, based in

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, was sold to

Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is a British supermarket and the second-largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company was the largest UK r ...

for £100 million, and the company began to focus on food production rather than retail. In early 2008, sales of the Aunt Bessie's Homestyle mashed potato doubled when it featured in Delia Smith's '' How to Cheat at Cooking'' for use in a

shepherd's pie Shepherd's pie, cottage pie, or in French cuisine ''hachis Parmentier'', is a savoury dish of cooked minced meat topped with mashed potato and baked, formerly also called Sanders or Saunders. The meat used may be either previously cooked or fre ...

. The same year, the company name was changed to Aunt Bessie's Ltd. In its list of Britain's biggest brands,

The Grocer ''The Grocer'' is a British digital and magazine service devoted to grocery sales, published by William Reed Ltd. It has been published since 1862. The Grocer 33 A feature of the service is 'The Grocer 33'. This is a survey of each of the fi ...

ranked Aunt Bessie's at 50 in 2016 and 55 in 2017. In June 2018, Nomad Foods agreed to buy the Aunt Bessie's business from William Jackson for £210 million.

References

* ''Financial Times'', page 13, 4 February 2004

External links

Aunt Bessie's

William Jackson Food Group

Regional Food Group for Yorkshire and Humber
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100329200252/http://www.rfgyh.co.uk/ , date=29 March 2010 Industry in Kingston upon Hull Companies based in Kingston upon Hull Companies established in 1995 Yorkshire cuisine Food manufacturers of the United Kingdom Frozen food brands