Peek Freans

Peek Freansis the name of abiscuit-making company based inBermondsey,London, England which is now a global brand of biscuits and related confectionery owned by various food businesses.
James Peek (1800–1879) was one of three brothers born inDodbrooke, Devon, to a well-off family.In 1821, the three brothers founded ateaimportation company, established as Peek Brothers and Co., in theEast End of London.By the 1840s, the company was importing £5 million of tea per annum.
In 1824, Peek 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. Peek 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, Peek needed someone to run the biscuit business. One of his nieces, Hannah Peek, had recently married George Hender Frean, amillerandship biscuitmaker in Devon, so Peek wrote to Frean asking him to manage the new biscuit business.
The partners registered their business in 1857 as Peek, Frean & Co. Ltd, based in a disusedsugar refineryon Mill Street in Dockhead, South East 
London,in the west ofBermondsey.With a quickly expanding business, in 1860, Peek engaged his friend John Carr, the apprenticed son of theCarlisle-based Scottish milling and biscuit-making family,Carr's.
From 1861, Peek, Frean & Co. Ltd started exporting biscuits to Australia,but outgrew their premises from 1870 after agreeing to fulfil an order from theFrench Armyfor 460 long tons (470 t) of biscuits for the ration packs supplied to soldiers fighting theFranco-Prussian War.After hostilities ended, the French Government ordered a further 16,000 long tons (16,000 t)/11 million sweet "Pearl" biscuits in celebration of the end of theSiege of Paris, and further flour supplies for Paris in 1871 and 1872, with financing undertaken by their bankers theRothschilds.The consequential consumer demands of emigrating French expatriate soldiers, allowed the company to start exporting directly toOntario, Canada from the mid-1870s.
In 1865, Peek agreed with Carr that the business needed bigger premises. In exchange for a stake in the business, Carr gave the company 10 acres (4.0 ha) ofmarket gardenshe had recently bought on Clements Road and Drummond Road, Bermondsey.Commissioning a new integrated factory, its resultant scale and sweet-emanating smell resulted in Bermondsey gaining the nickname "Biscuit Town".The opening of the factory coincided in 1866 with James Peek stepping down from the business, installing his son-in-law Thomas Stone in his place.
On 23 April 1873, the old Dockhead factory burnt down in a spectacular fire,which brought thePrince of Walesout on aLondon Fire Brigadehorse-drawn water pump to view the resulting explosions.
James Peek died aged 79 at his home in Watcombe nearTorquay, Devon.After George Frean's son James Frean retired in 1887, his family had nothing more to do with running the business. Peek's nephewFrancis Hedley Peek(1858–1904) became the firstchairmanof the now publicly listed company in 1901. However, on his death in 1904, again the Peek family had nothing more to do with managing the business. John Carr's family remained actively associated with the business for several more generations.
In 1906, the Peek, Frean and Co. factory in Bermondsey was the subject of one of the earliestdocumentary filmsshot by Cricks and Sharp.This was in part to celebrate an expansion of the company's cake business, which later made thewedding cakesfor bothPrincess Elizabeth and Philip MountbattenandCharles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer.
In 1924, the company established their first factory outside the UK, inDum Dum, India.In 1931, five personnel from the Bermondsey factory went to Australia to train the staff in the new factory inCamperdowninSydney. In 1949, they established their first bakery in Canada, located on Bermondsey Road inEast York, Ontario, which still today produces Peek Freans branded products.
After 126 years, the London factory was closed by then owner BSN on Wednesday 26 May 1989.The closing down of the factory in Bermondsey was the subject of the  1988 documentary filmOld Ways New Waysmade by local, independent filmmakersSands Films, directed by Olivier Stockman.
Left derelict for a long period, the former premises were eventually redeveloped into what today is called the Tower Bridge Business Complex.One of the streets near the site of the factory is still called Frean Street, after the company's co-founder. In 2020, plans to redevelop the former Biscuit Town site as build-to-rent (BTR) housing were announced, with a £500m, 1600-home BTR scheme given planning permission in March 2024.
In late 2011, a tinnedChristmas puddingwas discovered at the back of a kitchen cupboard inPoole, Dorset. Donated to the museum atPortsmouth Historic Dockyard, it was a "Peek, Frean & Co'sTeetotalPlum Pudding—London, High Class Ingredients Only" from 1900. It was one of a thousand puddings sent to British sailors during theBoer Waron behalf ofAgnes Weston, superintendent of the Royal NavalTemperanceSociety – hence its recipe being alcohol-free.
From the outset of its establishment, the company produced what were then the established form of biscuits in theCommonwealthcountries, a hard, square, pin-pricked (known as "docker-holes", introduced by the baker to stop the biscuit expanding like a bread) dry style, suitable for storage on ships in passage due to its longevity.However, Carr brought his knowledge of both the Scottish cake-like tradition (i.e.,shortbread), and experience during his apprenticeship of Dutch sweet and softcookies. With James Peek still viewing the business as a complementary and co-marketing opportunity to the family's tea company, they began introducing sweetened product lines:
Like many good employers of the Victorian age, the company developed an enlightened paternalistic approach, giving many innovative benefits to its employees.At its Biscuit Town factory, much like a mini-town, as well as having: an on-site bank, post office and fire station; employees and their families had free-to-use access to on-site medical, dental and optical services.The original contracted hours were 68 across a Monday-Saturday double-shift pattern, but these were reduced from 1868 without a reduction in pay, noted as highly beneficial byHenry Mayhew.The directors wanted to ensure that the workers indulged in "virtuous pursuits",and so formed the first of the company paid-for societies, included: a cricket club (1868); musical society (1907); and athletic and dramatic societies (both 1908).Post-World War I, the company set up a tribunal, through which workers could freely express and debate their concerns. This resulted in the company giving its employees a pension plan, plus a week's paid holiday per year.
In 1921, Peek Frean entered into an amalgamation agreement with rival biscuit firmHuntley & Palmers, resulting in the creation of a holding company, Associated Biscuit Manufacturers Ltd (ABM).However, both biscuit firms retained their own brands and premises.Jacob'sjoined the conglomerate from 1961.English Biscuit Manufacturers(EBM) was established inPakistanas a local joint-venture production company from 1965, which still owns the various brand rights in the country.
During the course of its life, the firm's brand name changed from Peek, Frean and Co. to Peek Frean (in the early twentieth century) and then to Peek Freans (by the 1970s, the name having been used in the possessive case on products for many years).
In the 1970s Peek Freans were advertised with the popularjingle, "Peek Freans are a Very Serious Cookie."
The company was broken apart from 1982, afterNabiscobought ABM. In 1985, Nabisco was acquired by the foods division ofR. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, resulting in the creation of conglomerateRJR Nabisco. After RJR Nabisco was bought in aleveraged buyoutbyKohlberg Kravis Roberts, to pay down the resulting debt, various assets were sold off. This included dividing the former Peek Freans company; the North America division was sold toKraft Foods, the European mainly-UK division was sold to the European food conglomerate BSN (now known asGroupe Danone), and many of the international subsidiaries were sold off locally to in-country investors, e.g. EBM. As part of its cost cutting, BSN ended use and marketing of the brand in the UK, which allowed it to shut the factory in Bermondsey. In September 2004United Biscuitsbought what was by then known as theJacob's Biscuit Groupfor £240 million from Groupe Danone.
In 2017, the Peek Frean trademark was acquired by the great-great-grandson of Francis Hedley-Peek, the first Chairman of Peek Frean and the nephew of founder James Peek.