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B003 - Edition 50,000
John West Bus
John West was founded in UK in 1861 by two local merchants, T L Pelling and C H Stanley, who gave the company its original name - Pelling Stanley and Company. The partners soon recognised the potential of canned food, particularly Salmon, as an ideal food for workers in the industrial North of Britain and were the first to ship salmon from America to the United Kingdom in 1871. By 1879 the partners were acting as agents for several different canned salmon brands in the U.K., one of which was John West, the rights to which they purchased in 1888 and the first shipments of John West Salmon appeared in 1892.
Details on the origins of the name John West are somewhat obscure but it is known that John West was a Scotsman, probably from Linlithgow. Around the turn of the century, two other companies were founded, which were also to become the current John West Foods - Angus Watson and Co. which introduced Skippers in the early 1900's and R B Green and Co. By 1924, the three companies, operating separately, were all associated with Unilever, through shares owned by the first Lord Leverhulme. However, they were not completely merged until 1961, and the company name of John West Foods did not appear until 1964.
Branches of the company were established overseas, in Australia in 1969 and Africa in 1974, whilst an export network was established which now trades with more than 60 countries. John West Foods was acquired by H J Heinz in 1997, one of the world's largest grocery companies.
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