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| Single Person record details
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Person Code
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DS/UK/24891
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Corporate Name
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Baxters Food Group
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Activity
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George Baxter, the founder of the firm, began working life as a gardener at Gordon Castle, the home of the Duke of Richmond and Gordon. In 1868, with some encouragement from the Duke, he borrowed money from relatives and opened a small grocery shop in the village of Fochabers. Then barter was still common and housewives frequently exchanged their garden produce for groceries. His wife, Margaret, took to making jams and jellies in the back of the shop from fruit bartered by his customers. When her jams found their way to Gordon Castle, their quality ensured their popularity with the Duke's friends and the Baxter reputation began to spread.
The range of jams grew and in 1914, William, George's son and his wife, Ethel bought a plot of land from the Duke of Gordon and built a small factory. While Ethel supervised the making of the jam, William travelled all over Scotland, advocating the quality of his wife's preserves. In 1928 they began the production of beetroot which was to become one of their best selling products. By cleverly blending old ideas with new, and drawing on the abundance of fine local produce, Ethel created an exceptional range of soups. She also pioneered the canning of soft fruit and introduced new jams such as Little Scarlet Strawberry Jam, Wild Bramble Jelly and Loganberry Jelly. From a recipe supplied by the 7th Duke of Richmond and Gordon, she created the first of Baxters marmalades - Castle Marmalade.
Ethel's talent as an innovator, combined with her husband's skill as a salesman, made Baxters a formidable force in the 1920s and 1930s. William travelled further from Fochabers on his selling trips. Eventually he announced a first order from Harrods. Fortnum & Mason's, the Army & Navy Stores, and all the other great London stores soon followed. London became a window on the world beyond, as buyers from Macy's of New York and other stores in America, Australia and South Africa discovered Baxters jams and soups. By 1939, Baxter products were found in cities such as Colombo, Khartoum, Singapore and other outposts of the Empire.
After the war, Gordon and his brother Ian returned to join the family firm. They found the business had scraped through the bleak years of 1939 to 1945 by making a little jam for the NAAFI and not much else. Baxters then employed only 11 people and its turnover amounted to £40,000, or £800 per week. In spite of chronic shortages of many basic items, such as cans, jars and sugar, the brothers were determined to rebuild the business. Ian got the factory up and running, planned extensions and found a water source on site and sank wells, designed new pieces of machinery and assumed responsibility for purchasing and personnel. In 1947 father William retired - aged 70 - and Gordon became managing director, a position he continued to hold for the next 48 years.
By 1950 Baxters had 20 employees and a turnover of about £1,000 per week. Gordon had twin roles as product developer and sales force. In 1952, he married a gifted young artist called Ena Robertson from Aberdeenshire and gained the other half of a quite exceptional business partnership. Expansion and innovation continued at Fochabers until in 1959, Gordon set off for the United States. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Gordon and Ena visited America so frequently that they were regarded as informal ambassadors for Scotland. No British food promotion in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles or Dallas was complete without the Baxter shop. Ena's cooking demonstrations were seen on American TV. She and Gordon hosted large Scottish charity banquets, with an all-Baxter menu.
Gordon's main concern was ensuring the natural flavour and goodness of a home-made soup or preserve and not losing it in the process of mass production. Calling on his training as a biochemist, he built up a team comprising 23 food scientists, food technologists, cooks, chemists and microbiologists to ensure that Baxters produces only the very best.
The 1980s saw the business grow. Baxters traditional soups were already well-established as the leading premium brand in the UK. Baxters beetroot and mini-jars of jam and marmalade now also reached the number one position in UK markets. The Company's annual turnover tripled to over £30m.
In 1992, one year before the 125th anniversary of the founding of the business, Gordon handed over the Managing Directorship to his daughter Audrey and the fourth generation of Baxters. Audrey had a successful career for herself in the City with the merchant bankers Kleinwort Benson before running the family business helped by her two brothers Andrew and Michael. Audrey is Chairman and Chief Executive and Andrew, her brother, is Deputy Chairman.
Baxters now boasts a thriving business in their busy Visitor Centre on the banks of the River Spey which draws close to 230,000 visitors each year and generates almost £2 million in income. Baxters is the longest-established and largest employer in the area. At peak production times over 800 people work at the factory. Indirectly the company also employs a small army of vegetable farmers, fruit growers and pickers, ghillies, gamekeepers, deer-stalkers, dairymen, drivers and many others. Most of the Baxter factory staff comes from local farming and fishing communities.
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Dates
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1868-
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Epithet
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food manufacturers
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NonPreferredTerm
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W A Baxter and Son Ltd
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Subordinate
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Fochabers, Morayshire
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Associated records
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| NRAS3117 | W A Baxter & Son Ltd, Food Manufacturers Fochabers, Moray | 1877-1988 |
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