H. P. Bulmer
Bulmers Cider Logo 2011
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Alcoholic beverages |
| Founded | 1887 |
| Founder | H. P. Bulmer |
| Headquarters | London, England |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
| Products | Cider |
| Owner | Heineken International |
| Website | Bulmers |
H.P. Bulmer is an English cider-making company founded in 1887 in Hereford, England. The founder was Henry Percival "Percy" Bulmer, the twenty-year-old son of the local rector at Credenhill, the Reverend Charles H. Bulmer and his wife Mary. He is said to have taken his mother's advice to make a career in food or drink, "because neither ever go out of fashion". The company's two principal brands are its own Bulmers cider, which is sold worldwide, and Strongbow, which is sold across Europe, the US, Australasia and the Far East. The company is owned by Heineken International. Today, HP Bulmer makes 65% of the five hundred million litres of cider sold annually in the United Kingdom and the bulk of the UK's cider exports. The firm's primary competitor is the Irish C&C Group and its Magners brand (which holds the licence to the Bulmers name within the Republic of Ireland only).
Using apples from the orchard at his father's rectory and an old stone press on the farm next door, Percy Bulmer made the first cider, upon which the family fortune would be made.
In 1889, his elder brother Fred (Edward Frederick Bulmer), coming down from King's College, Cambridge, turned down the offer of a post as tutor to the children of the King of Siam to join Percy in his fledgling cider business.
With a £1,760 loan from their father, the brothers bought an 8 acres (3.2 ha) field just outside the city and built their first cider mill. It was little more than a barn compared to the huge modern stainless-steel computer-controlled cider-making plant that has grown up on a 75 acres (30.4 ha) site nearby.
Cider-making was then an unpredictable activity, the natural fermentation process being achieved by yeast contained within apples; meant that the cider often became sour. It was a college friend of Fred's, Dr Herbert Durham, who, in the 1890s, isolated a wild yeast to create the first pure cider yeast culture, which would ensure that fermentations were consistent. This was the start of commercial cider-making.
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