SAUCES, PICKLES & CONCENTRATES

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A1

A1 Sauce is still popular in the United States. In the U.K. the brand is now largely unknown.

Location: Keybridge House, 72-84 South Lambeth Road, SW8 1QU

Bovril

In 1971 James Goldsmiths's Cavenham Foods bought Bovril. The company's brands included Marmite. In 1980 Bovril was bought by Beechams.

Location: 148-166 Old Street, EC1V 9BW. Bovril's head office. (purple, pink)

Crosse & Blackwell

At the start of the First World War Crosse & Blackwell had the production capacity to be able to a make 1,000,000 gallons of malt vinegar a year.

Following the First World War Crosse & Blackwell acquired James Keiller, a Dundee-based manufacturer of marmalade and jams. The company's London factory was in Silvertown

In 1920 Crosse & Blackwell acquired E. Lazenby, a sauces and pickles business. The deal made it the world's largest manufacturer of packaged foods.

Like a number of other food manufacturers, Crosse & Blackwell, after having enjoyed a prosperous First World War, found the 1920s to be difficult. The Crosse & Blackwell factory at the northern end of Charing Cross Road was sold in 1921. The previous year a 120-acre site had been acquired in Branston, Staffordshire. Upon this a state-of-the-art factory was being built. In 1922 it produced its first jar of Branston Pickle. However, because it was consumed disproportionately in London and because much the production was exported, productions costs proved to be higher than they had been in the metropolis when transportation was factored in. The factory was closed in 1925 and the site sold subsequently. Manufacturing capacity was boosted at the company's Bermondsey and Silvertown facilities.

The company's problems were compounded by the fact that the merger the Lazenby acquisition was poorly managed so that duplications and in efficiencies were created that its management failed to deal with.

During the Blitz the Silvertown factory was destroyed. It was rebuilt. Preserves production was transferred to Dundee. The plant then just made Crosse & Blackwell-branded foods.

Location: 157 Charing Cross Road, W1T 7RJ (blue, red)

Crimscott Street, SE1 3BH. Lazenby's factory.

Tay Wharf, Silvertown, E16 2EZ. Keiller s factory.

Website: www.bringoutthebranston.co.uk

Haywards

The Haywards Pickle factory was in Kennington Lane, Kennington.

Website: www.haywardspickles.co.uk

Heinz

Heinz s first British factory was in Peckham.

In 1876 Heinz launched its tomato ketchup.

Website: www.heinz.co.uk

HP Sauce

In the 1870s Harry Palmer created HP Sauce, naming it after himself. He ran up gambling debts and had to sell the recipe.

Frederick Gibson Garton, a grocer from Nottingham, created the recipe for a brown sauce. In 1895 he registered the HP Sauce brand, claiming that the name derived from it being served in one of the Houses of Parliament's restaurants. He sold it to Edwin Samson Moore of Aston Cross-based The Midlands Vinegar Company for 150 plus the cancelling of some debts. The expense of the ingredients in making chutney had meant that consumption of them had been limited to the affluent. Midlands managed to make HP a mass-market product. In 1904 Daddies Favourite was launched as a sister version.

In the 1960s in an interview with a journalist from The Sunday Times Mary Wilson, the wife of the Labour Prime Minister, remarked that If Harold has a fault, it is that he will drown everything with HP Sauce. As a result, the condiment was nicknamed Wilson's Gravy.

During the First World War many food in were short. HP proved to be a way of making what was available more palatable.

There was an HP Sauce factory on the river in Hammersmith.

In 2006 Groupe Danone of France sold HP Sauce to Heinz. Soon afterwards, it was announced that production was being transferred from Aston Cross to Elst in The Netherlands. This triggered a number of protests, one of them was staged outside the American Embassy.

In 2019 the Palace of Westminster's Elizabeth Tower was clad in scaffolding in order to allow repairs to it to be made. HP s label was tweaked so as to include this new reality.

Location: 10 Downing Street, SW1A 2AA (orange, red)

30 Grosvenor Square, W1A 1AE. The former embassy. (orange, purple)

The Palace of Westminster, Parliament Square, SW1A 0AA (purple, blue)

Website: www.hpsauce.co.uk

E. Lazenby & Son

Peter Harvey (1749-1812) developed culinary skills of a level that he was hired by the 6^th Duke of Bolton to be his chef. After leaving his grace's employment Harvey became the landlord of The Black Dog, a coaching inn on the Great West Road at Bedfont in Middlesex. The establishment's clientele consisted largely of well-heeled people who were travelling to and from Bath. It became renowned for what became known as Harvey's Sauce. This had a soya sauce and vinegar base to which cayenne pepper, anchovies, and garlic were matured. Its flavours were matured and its darkness intensified by it being stored in barrels before being served.

Harvey s Sauce developed a following in London and in the 1800s was being distributed widely. Harvey took to signing every bottle in order to indicate its authenticity. He died in 1812 and the task was assumed by his sister Elizabeth, who with her husband John Lazenby was manufacturing it in the West End. Byron mentioned the sauce in his poem Beppo (1817) and both Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray referred to it in novels.

In 1861 the business acquired a new factory on Trinity Street, Borough. Subsequently, a large factory was built for the firm in Bermondsey. In 1895 E. Lazenby & Son became a limited company. Five years the sauce was renamed Lazenby's Sauce. In 1919 the business was bought by Crosse & Blackwell, which had a more developed distribution system. Three years the Wigmore Street was site was given up. The factory in Borough was closed in 1925.

Location: Crimscott Street, SE1 3BH. Lazenby s factory.

201 Staines Road, Bedfont, TW14 9EA. Demolished.

28-30 Trinity Street, SE1 4JA

6 Wigmore Street (formerly Edward Street), W1U 2RD. The original manufacturing site. (blue, blue)

Oxo

Oxo was the food sponsor for the 1908 Olympics.

Website: www.oxo.co.uk

Sarson's

Sarson's vinegar factory was on Lambeth Road.

Location: Caron Place, 87 South Lambeth Road, SW8 1RN

169 Tower Bridge Road, SE1 3JB. Closed in 1992.

Website: www.sarsons.co.uk

David Backhouse 2024