Spillers
Spillers Ltd is a defunct British company that owned flour milling operations in the United Kingdom, operated bakeries and also sold pet food. It went bankrupt in large part due to misguided government policies that hobbled the entire baking industry at the time.[1]
Winalot is a popular brand of dog food sold by Spillers.[2] The name was first used in 1927 for dog biscuits. They were initially marketed as a food for racing greyhounds, but soon gained popularity with pet-owners and became a brand leader in the 1930s.[3]
In 1947, Spillers acquired Foster Mill next to the railway station in Station Road, Cambridge.[4]
In 1964, Spillers took over the Kennomeat dog food brand with its acquisition of a subsidiary of Robert Wilson & Sons, Scottish Animal Products Ltd.[3]
In 1978, Spillers acquired Modern Maid Food Products Inc of Garden City, NJ (NYSE:MMF)[5]
In 1979 Spillers was acquired by Dalgety plc,[6] after a hostile take-over battle. The company's bakery business was spun off and sold to Allied Bakeries.[7]
In the late 1990s, following a BSE crisis in the UK, Dalgety entered into a series of disposals and sold Spillers flour milling operations to Kerry Group plc in 1997[8] and its pet foods business to Nestlé in 1997.[9]
The Spillers business was expanded by Nestlé, and the Winalot brand was extended to include a range of dry and tinned dogfoods and snacks.
References
- ↑ "Give Us This Day," by W. Duncan Reekie (Hobart Paper 79)
- ↑ Winalot.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Purina: Our History.
- ↑ Station Road: Foster Mill, Cambridge 2000.
- ↑ http://www.sec.gov/news/digest/1978/dig101678.pdf
- ↑ Company History
- ↑ Allied Bakeries corporate site
- ↑ Dalegety sells its food ingredients business for £360m PR Newswire, 1997
- ↑ Sale of Spillers Petfoods for £715m PR Newswire, 1997
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