Peek Freans
| Named after | Founders |
|---|---|
| Successor | UK/Europe: United Biscuits North America: Mondelēz International Other global: various |
| Formation | 1857 |
| Founder | James Peek & George Frean |
| Founded at | Mill Street, Bermondsey, London, England |
| Extinction | 26 May 1989 |
| Type | Public company |
| Legal status | Defunct, brands merged |
| Headquarters | Clements Road, Bermondsey, London |
|
Region
|
Global |
| Products | Biscuits including Garibaldi |
|
Key people
|
James Peek, George Frean, James Carr, Francis Hedley Peek |
Peek Freans is the name of a former biscuit making company based in Bermondsey, London, which is now a global brand of biscuits and related confectionery owned by various food businesses. Owned but not marketed in the UK and Europe by United Biscuits, in the United States and Canada the brand is owned by Mondelēz International, whilst in Pakistan the brand is owned by English Biscuit Manufacturers.
James Peek (1800–1879) was one of three brothers born in Dodbrooke, Devon, to a well-off family. In 1821 the three brothers founded a tea importation company, established as Peek Brothers and Co., in the East End of London. By the 1840s, the company was importing £5M of tea per annum.
In 1824, James married Elizabeth Masters (1799–1867). The couple had eight children. By 1857, two of his late-teenage sons had announced that they were not going to join the family tea import business. James wanted them in a complementary trade and proposed that they start a biscuit business. After founding the business, the two sons quickly decided on a different course (one died in his early 20s; the other emigrated to North America). As a consequence James needed someone to run the biscuit business. One of his nieces, Hannah Peek, had recently married George Hender Frean, a miller and ship biscuit maker in Devon, so James wrote to George asking him to manage the new biscuit business.
The partners registered their business in 1857 as Peek, Frean & Co. Ltd, based in a disused sugar refinery on Mill Street in Dockhead, East London, in the west of Bermondsey. With a quickly expanding business, in 1860 Peek engaged his friend James Carr, the apprenticed son of noted Carlisle-based Scottish milling and biscuit making family, Carr's.
From 1861, the company started exporting biscuits to Australia, but outgrew their premises from 1870 after agreeing to fulfil an order from the French Army for 460 long tons (470 t) of biscuits for the ration packs supplied to soldiers fighting the Franco-Prussian War. After hostilities ended, the French Government ordered a further 16,000 long tons (16,000 t)/11million sweet Pearl biscuits in celebration of the end of the Siege of Paris, and further flour supplies for Paris in 1871 and 1872, with financing undertaken by their bankers the Rothschilds. The consequential consumer demands of emigrating French expatriate soldiers, allowed the company to start exporting directly to Ontario, Canada from the mid-1870s.
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