Our History

George Samworth would travel around by train and bicycle, visiting farms and agreeing deals with the farmers before arranging to sell the pigs.

The business that Frank Samworth bought in 1950 had a long and proud history. Thomas Naylor Parr established his first pork butcher’s shop in the 1870s, where he sold pork and pork products under the sign of ‘TN Parr’.

The Samworths purchased Pork Farms for £510,000, which had been built up from the two backstreet shops to a large manufacturing business with 15 retail outlets.

The Pork Farms flotation launched a new period of expansion for the business

This marked a milestone for the Samworth family: its first dedicated investment behind own label foods for the supermarkets, and the development of a business model that would come to dominate Samworth Brothers in the future.

The purchase of a Cornish pasty business that had started life in a converted egg packing factory marked the start of the next chapter in the Samworth story.

The total purchase price amounted to £23 million with a key factor being the family knew Northern Foods had a good reputation for looking after its people.

In November 1985 the name of the Ginsters holding company was changed from Gorran Foods to Samworth Brothers. The Samworths had a family business once more.

This marked the start of a new exciting chapter in the Midlands with Walker & Son being established
since 1820.

Today the shop is an established Melton Mowbray attraction recognised by the East Midlands, English and British Tourist Boards, and a visit is part of Melton’s tourist trail.

Since its inception in June 1992 Westward has grown into one of the UK’s leading independent food testing laboratories, well known for the quality of its work.

In June 1993 Bradgate bakery started production of 11 varieties of sandwiches for Waitrose and Tesco.

Today, our Walkers Deli & Sausage Co. site has four distinct facilities: sausages, cooked meats, pâté and bacon/snacking and employs over 1,000 colleagues.

Melton Foods became Samworth Brothers’ other key sandwich business located in the picturesque Melton Mowbray, this bakery was originally created to produce sandwiches for Waitrose and still has this business today.

Samworth Brothers Distribution. (Renamed Samworth Brothers Supply Chain in 2015) has become a crucial part of our business. Uniquely in our industry, we own our logistics service allowing us to guarantee great customer service.

Tamar Bakery takes its name from the nearby River Tamar and today is merged within The Cornwall Bakery.

Kettleby Foods became the Group’s first dedicated ready meals facility in April 1999.

Saladworks was completed in April 2003 and was designed to be at the cutting edge of food safety, energy efficiency and environmental awareness, whilst offering exceptional colleague facilities.

In 2003 David Samworth and Brian Stein (pictured) accepted the ‘Business of the Decade’ award at the Leicestershire Business Awards, just one of a host of awards won by the company around this time.

David Samworth was knighted in the 2009 Birthday Honours List, in recognition of his extensive charitable work, including the creation of three Academy schools in Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire.

In July 2013 the Samworth Brothers Charity Challenge, had raised over 1.1 million pounds with this figure continuing to rise every two years.

The Sports Opportunity Fund was established in 2013 following the success of the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics and a desire to support our communities to thrive through the legacy of the Games.

In February 2014 Samworth Brothers acquired Soreen the producer of the iconic malt loaf. This represented a slight change of direction as its product is ambient, not chilled, and it owns its own brand.

Due to organic growth Samworth Brothers invested into developing a new site Bradgate Bakery – Ashton Green with the first trial sandwich going down the line on 10th September 2014.

At the beginning of 2017 Samworth Brothers acquired West Cornwall Pasty Co., a business operating from 52 outlets across the UK and specialising in quality hot food to go, including pasties handmade in Cornwall.

SBSC’s moves to the purpose-built Oak Meadow site which is 155,000 sq. ft., with 49 vehicle docks, designed to use both Single and Double Deck trailers. Oak Meadow was devised with future-proofing the business in mind.

On 26 January 2019, 1,100 new colleagues joined the Samworth Brothers family of businesses after the acquisition of Nottinghamshire-based food-to-go specialist Manton Wood.

In June 2019 Samworth Brothers acquired a minority stake in Higgidy. This was converted into a majority stake in December 2020. As a successful premium consumer brand, Higgidy is a good fit for Samworth Brothers which has a strategy of owning and building distinctive brands.

May 2020, Samworth Brothers acquired Urban Eat, an established brand that could easily be plugged into the Food for Now network.

On the 10th February 2022 Samworth acquired a 60% stake in Freshways, the largest pre-packed FTG supplier in the Republic of Ireland which has a 400-strong team based in Dublin.

Samworth Brothers acquired the business in 2024. Strong growth potential and good synergies were prime reasons for making the acquisition, with Real Wrap’s primary focus in areas such as education, travel and contract catering complementing Samworth Brothers’ core FTG markets.