page_title: Gulam Noon, Baron Noon
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Gulam Noon, Baron Noon / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: London
context_page_description: Gulam Kaderbhoy Noon, Baron Noon, MBE was a British businessman originally from Mumbai, India. Known as the "Curry King", Noon operated a number of food product companies in Southall, London. He was a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Ismaili Shia community
context_section_description: Noon founded and operated a number of food product companies in Southall, London, specialising in Indian cuisine. His main business was Noon Products which he established in September 1987, manufacturing chilled and frozen Indian and Thai ready meals, predominantly for UK supermarkets. Whilst he didn't invent the dish, Noon is credited with the popularity of chicken tikka masala in Britain.
  In 1994, the company experienced a serious factory fire which destroyed much of its manufacturing capability, however within ten weeks of this fire the company had begun selling its products again. Noon kept all his staff in employment during this period.
  In 2005, Noon Products was taken over by Irish food conglomerate Kerry Group.
  In March 2006 he came to wider notice as one of the businessmen embroiled in the "Cash for Peerages" scandal when it emerged that he had loaned £250,000 to the Labour Party. He was given an MBE for services to the food industry in 1994 (under a Conservative government) and knighted in 2002. Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn said that awarding knighthoods to party donors, like Noon, would devalue the whole honours system.
  Noon was a declared backer of the Britain in Europe group, a pro-European pressure group and as a former trustee of the Maimonides Foundation, a charitable organisation promoting dialogue between Jews and Muslims.
  He was awarded an Honorary Degree from the University of East London on 12 November 2009. In January 2013, Lord Noon was appointed as the chancellor of the University of East London.
caption: Noon group offices at Queen Anne's Gate, London.
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-FS10", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Microsoft Windows Photo Viewer 6.1.7600.16385", "Image DateTime": "2015:09:20 20:07:29", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "2344", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D2": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D3": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Rotated 90 CW", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "14742", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6346", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/80", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:09:20 15:50:22", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:09:20 15:50:22", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "4000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "14182", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "28", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "3792"}