Fox’s is best known for the Rocky and Party Rings biscuits. Brandy snaps, its original product, are still sold.
Michael Spedding establishes the business
Michael Spedding (1834 – 1927) was born to poor circumstances at Marsh, near Huddersfield in Yorkshire. He received just three months of formal education.
Spedding found work at a cotton mill in nearby Meltham. His grandfather encouraged him to relocate to Batley, where prospects were better. Spedding was poor, and made the 15-mile journey on foot. His economic position was such that on some nights he would sleep in barns.
Spedding married Susan Fox (1834 – 1895), the daughter of a bone-setter, in 1854.
Party Rings, a leading Fox’s product
Spedding had established himself as a food seller by 1863. He began to concentrate on the confectionery trade, with an initial focus on brandy snap biscuits.
Spedding had been joined in business by his daughter Hannah and his son-in-law Fred Ellis Fox (1871 – 1938) by 1891. The business began to trade as F E Fox & Co from 1897. Spedding retired in 1900.
F E Fox & Son
Fred Fox was joined by his son, Michael Spedding Fox (1896 – 1963), and the business began to trade as F E Fox & Son.
F E Fox & Son relocated to a new site at Batley from 1927. Ginger biscuits began to be produced alongside brandy snaps.
Michael Spedding died as one of the oldest men in his district in 1927.
F E Fox & Son was incorporated as a private company in 1938. The business was still a regional concern at this time.
Fred Fox died in 1938 and left an estate valued at £19,243. Michael Spedding Fox became managing director of the company.
Fox’s Biscuits becomes a national business
The Batley factory was expanded and modernised in the post-war period. F E Fox & Son had around 500 employees by 1955.
F E Fox & Son won a valuable contract to produce biscuits for Marks & Spencer in 1958. The contract accounted for half of all production.
F E Fox & Son required capital to fulfil its ambitions of becoming a nationally recognised company. The business went public in 1960 as Fox’s Biscuits with an authorised share capital of £400,000. There were around 950 employees.
The offices at Batley in 2007
Parkinson’s Biscuits of Kirkham, Preston was acquired in 1966.
J Lyons & Co acquired a 25 percent stake in Fox’s Biscuits in 1972.
Acquisition by Northern Foods
Fox’s Biscuits was acquired by Northern Foods in 1977. Following the merger of their interests, Northern Foods supplied Marks & Spencer with around 40 percent of its cake and biscuits.
Alfred Henry Fox died with an estate valued at £124,375 in 1977.
Fox’s Biscuits was one of the largest biscuit manufacturers in Britain by 1986. Around 2,500 people were employed.
Elkes Biscuits of Uttoxeter was acquired in 1986.
Northern Foods invested £20 million to increase production at Fox’s Biscuits in 1987.
Fox’s Biscuits was best known for its Rocky and Party Rings biscuits by the 1990s.
The Elkes brand was repositioned as a budget product.
2 Sisters Food Group and Ferrero
Northern Foods was acquired by 2 Sisters Food Group in 2011.
Fox’s ranked fourth in the British biscuit market, with a four percent share in 2019. The business employed 2,000 people. Own-label and contact work accounted for around 25 percent of production.
Ferrero, an Italian confectionery manufacturer, acquired Fox’s Biscuits, including the Batley and Kirkham sites, for £246 million in 2020. The own-label biscuit business, with a factory at Uttoxeter, was retained by 2 Sisters.
Crawford’s was the fourth largest biscuit manufacturer in Britain, and the longest-established. The brand continues today as the economy sister brand to McVitie’s.
Origins and early growth
Ship biscuits were first produced at 31 Shore, a public house in Leith, Edinburgh, from 1813. Robert Mathie (1789 – 1863) took over the business from 1817. The bakery business was to prosper under Mathie, and he employed five men by 1851.
Mathie retired in 1856 and sold the business to William Crawford (1818 – 1889). Crawford immediately opened an outlet on 14 Leith Street, Edinburgh, in order to extend his customer base.
Crawford was a master baker employing six men and one boy by 1861. He relocated his Edinburgh outlet to 2 Princes Street from 1866.
Crawford employed five men and one boy in 1871.
Crawford established a custom-built factory at Elbe Street, Leith in 1879. The business traded as William Crawford & Sons from 1880. The wheatmeal biscuit, similar to a digestive, had replaced the ship biscuit as the leading product by this time.
William Crawford died in 1889 as a well-respected figure in Leith and Edinburgh. He was succeeded as principal of the firm by his son, William Crawford (1858 – 1926), a man of a retiring disposition. It would be due to the efforts of the son that the family firm would grow to national scale.
Establishment of a Liverpool factory
William Crawford sent two of his brothers, Archibald Inglis Crawford (1869 – 1940) and James Shields Russell Crawford (1863 – 1927), to establish a subsidiary in Australia in 1897. The brothers were due to set sail from Liverpool, but instead decided to stay put, and established the Fairfield Works on Binns Road in the city.
The Fairfield Works, Binns Road, Liverpool (2013)
Crawford products around this time included wheatmeal, shortbread, currant and rich tea biscuits, as well as cream crackers.
William Crawford & Sons had established national distribution by 1900.
William Crawford & Sons of Leith was registered as a limited liability company with a capital of £251,000 in 1906. The Crawford family continued to control the business.
The Leith factory was largely rebuilt in 1906, and covered a quarter of an acre. The factory employed 150 men and boys by 1911.
Alexander Hunter Crawford (1865 – 1945), a leading Edinburgh architect, joined the company from around 1920.
William Crawford & Sons employed hundreds of people at its factories at Leith and Liverpool by 1923. By this time the company claimed to be “the oldest of the biscuit manufacturers”.
Company capital was increased to £700,000 in 1924.
William Crawford died with an estate valued at £876,211 in 1926.
William Crawford & Sons ranked among the largest British biscuit manufacturers by 1929. It was the fourth largest biscuit manufacturer in Britain in 1939, with a market share by volume of 14 percent.
Archibald Inglis Crawford died in 1940 with an estate valued at £1,015,886.
Douglas Inglis Crawford (1904 – 1981), son of Archibald, became company chairman from 1946. His father had instilled in him the values of honesty and integrity.
Douglas Inglis Crawford (1904 – 1981)
Sale to United Biscuits
William Crawford & Sons was the largest privately-owned biscuit manufacturer in Britain by 1962. Its best known product was shortbread. The business employed 3,000 people in Liverpool, and 1,000 in Leith.
The company was still largely in Crawford family hands when it was acquired in a friendly takeover by United Biscuits for £6.25 million in 1962. Douglas Crawford was appointed vice chairman of United Biscuits.
United Biscuits closed the Leith factory in 1970, with the loss of 703 jobs. Meanwhile an investment of £2 million saw production increased by 50 percent at the Liverpool plant.
The McVitie’s, Crawford and Macfarlane sales teams were merged in the 1970s.
Douglas Crawford retired in 1974.
The Crawford factory in Liverpool was the longest-established and largest of all United Biscuits factories. It was also the most progressive in terms of employee relations. The site covered seventeen acres and employed 4,000 people by 1977. The Tuc biscuit and Tartan shortbread were its leading products.
Douglas Crawford died with a net estate valued at £252,431 in 1981.
United Biscuits wound-down manufacturing operations at Liverpool between 1984 and 1987. 934 full time and over 1,000 part time jobs were lost. Some administrative functions are maintained at the site.
The Crawford name was repositioned as an economy brand from 2014. The Crawford’s (formerly Peek Frean) Family Circle was rebranded under the McVitie’s name.
This article continues from Part I. Part II chronicles the decline of Huntley & Palmers from its position as the largest biscuit manufacturer in the world.
Registered as a company
Huntley & Palmers was registered as a private limited company in 1898.
Huntley & Palmers was the 38th largest British industrial company in 1905, with a capital of £2.4 million (c. £255 million in 2014). Nearly 7,000 people were employed.
Iced gems were introduced in 1910.
As late as 1910, Huntley & Palmers largely eschewed advertising.
Huntley & Palmers employed 8,000 people by 1913.
George William Palmer died with an estate valued at £765,676 in 1913.
A 1923 advertisement
Huntley & Palmers was the largest biscuit manufacturer in the world. Almost half of production was exported by 1914, with 50 percent destined for the Far East and Africa.
Between 1865 and 1914 over 900,000 tonnes of biscuits were sold.
Huntley & Palmers supplied the British army with hard tack biscuits during the First World War.
The export trade was slow to rebuild after the First World War: only 25 percent of output was exported in 1924. Meanwhile, domestic sales declined as Huntley & Palmers failed to introduce new products or update existing ones. Marketing was poor, with inadequate advertising, fewer salesman than other firms and no depots outside Reading.
It has been argued that Huntley & Palmers had too many product lines to produce efficiently, and that the Palmer family paid themselves overly generous dividends and salaries, funds which might otherwise have been reinvested into the business.
The Reading factory site covered 24 acres, and included 36 acres of floorspace by 1920. The Osborne (similar to a digestive) was the most popular biscuit, followed by the Marie (rich tea) and the Ginger Nut.
Associated Biscuit Manufacturers
High income tax and death duties persuaded Huntley & Palmers to merge with Peek Frean of Bermondsey, under a holding company called Associated Biscuit Manufacturers (ABM), in 1921. Individual production and marketing strategies were maintained by the two companies.
By neglecting the commodity category of the biscuit market, ABM’s domestic market share had declined to 15 percent.
William Howard Palmer died in 1923 with an estate valued at £536,794.
A factory was opened near Paris in 1923. At the time it was decried in Britain as the transfer of jobs overseas.
80 percent of the 6,000 strong workforce at the Reading factory went on strike in 1924. The dispute, regarding worker efficiency, was settled within three days after Huntley & Palmers agreed to recognise the workers union.
Peek Frean turnover and profits had exceeded those of Huntley & Palmers by 1927. Peek Frean installed automated biscuit plants in the early 1930s, but Huntley & Palmers did not do so until 1938.
ABM employed 7,245 people in 1935.
Two large rivals emerged: the value biscuit manufacturer George Weston had established production volumes that equalled ABM by 1938. In 1948 the Scottish firms McVitie & Price and MacFarlane Lang merged to form United Biscuits, with 3,350 employees.
Huntley & Palmers in Reading (1945)
Factories were opened in Canada, the United States and Australia in 1949. The Reading factory employed 3,000 people in 1954.
A new factory was opened in Huyton, Liverpool in 1955.
The Cornish Wafer was the highest-selling biscuit by 1954. Associated Biscuits concentrated on cream, savoury and assorted biscuits. The Lemon Puff was introduced from 1958.
Around 15 to 20 percent of production was exported in 1959.
Jacob’s joins Associated Biscuit Manufacturers Jacob’s, the third largest biscuit manufacturer in Britain, was acquired by ABM in 1960. The purchase was motivated by a need to build scale in order to better compete with United Biscuits.
Huntley & Palmers employed 2,000 people across its two factories by 1968. The range of biscuits produced by Huntley & Palmers was streamlined in the mid to late 1960s in order to focus on the most profitable lines.
ABM was reorganised as Associated Biscuits in 1969.
Associated Biscuits employed 9,856 people in 1972. The company dedicated the vast majority of its advertising spend to the Jacob’s brand from 1972. One third of sales came from overseas, with factories in Australia, Canada and India.
Associated Biscuits had an 18 percent share of the British biscuit market in 1976. It was behind United Biscuits with 40 percent.
The Reading factory was closed in 1976. Associated Biscuits claimed that the 21-acre site was “surplus to requirements”, and production was relocated to Liverpool and Bermondsey. The valuable real estate was sold for £4 million in 1979.
Overseas production was dedicated to British-style biscuits. Digestives and shortcakes were popular in Canada, whilst the Indian market preferred cream crackers and Thin Arrowroot.
Associated Biscuits employed over 14,000 people in Britain by 1982, and a further 3,100 people overseas.
Acquisition by Nabisco
Nabisco, the American manufacturer of Shredded Wheat and Ritz crackers, acquired Associated Biscuits for £83.8 million in 1982. Nabisco was interested in the Huntley & Palmers brand, as well as its worldwide distribution network, particularly in Singapore, Canada, France and Germany.
The five Associated Biscuits factories in Britain were operating at half to two thirds capacity, and the business became loss-making. The Huyton factory was closed with the loss of 770 jobs in 1984, and production was relocated to Aintree, Liverpool.
The Aintree site was modernised at a cost of £25 million in 1986.
Huntley & Palmers was positioned as the Associated Biscuits premium sweet biscuit brand. However it accounted for just five percent of company production by weight by 1988.
Nabisco did not successfully manage their British biscuit operations. Their market share in biscuits had declined to 11.7 percent by 1988, and they were forced to reverse their decision to discontinue production of Bath Oliver biscuits following popular protest.
High overheads and traffic congestion saw the Peek Frean factory at Bermondsey closed with the loss of 1,022 jobs in 1989. Production was transferred to Aintree and Leicestershire.
Takeover by BSN
Associated Biscuits was acquired by BSN of France for $2.5 billion in 1989.
The Huntley & Palmers brand was phased out in favour of the Jacob’s name in 1990. It made sense to concentrate resources behind a single brand, and the Jacob’s name was better known, and believed to have a more contemporary image than the Huntley & Palmers brand. Huntley & Palmers products subjected to a re-branding included Romany, Crumbles, Lemon Puffs and Cornish Wafers.
The head office was relocated from Reading to Liverpool in 1996.
Sale to United Biscuits
BSN (now called Danone) sold its UK and Irish biscuit operations to United Biscuits for £200 million in 2004.
Huntley & Palmers Cornish Wafers are still sold under the Jacob’s brand, and McVitie’s continue to manufacture Thin Arrowroots. Huntley & Palmers biscuits are still produced in New Zealand.
In around 2018 the Huntley & Palmers brand was acquired by Freemans Confectionery, a Walsall-based confectionery wholesaler, who use the brand to market own-label products such as cakes.
Over a billion Jacob’s Cream Crackers were consumed in 2013.
W & R Jacob is established
W&R Jacob was founded by two Quaker brothers, William and Robert Jacob, in Waterford, Ireland in 1851. Shortly afterwards the business relocated to Peter’s Row, Dublin.
A fire completely destroyed their factory in 1880. W&R Jacob completely rebuilt and extended the site, and installed new machinery.
W&R Jacob had introduced “American Crackers” by 1881.
W&R Jacob introduced the cream cracker in 1885. It was so-called because it had extra fat “creamed” into the flour. The new product was to quickly prove a great success.
Jacob’s establishes a British factory
W&R Jacob acquired ten acres of land at Aintree, adjacent to Hartley’s jam factory, in 1912. It was intended to improve the firm’s market share in Liverpool. Manufacture began on the site from 1914.
During the First World War the armed forces were supplied with Jacob’s biscuits.
Following the end of the First World War, Jacob’s rehired every employee who had fought during the war, and also found work for a large number of men who had been injured during the conflict.
The Club chocolate biscuit was introduced from 1919.
The foundation of the Irish Free State saw the English subsidiary established as an independent company in 1922.
Jacob’s was one of the largest biscuit manufacturers in Britain by 1929.
The Aintree factory covered 30 spacious acres by 1932. The firm employed over 3,000 people. Over 300 different varieties of biscuit were manufactured.
The Yorkshire market was entered in earnest from 1932, with the construction of a large depot in Leeds.
Jacob’s held seven percent of the British biscuit market by volume by 1939.
Approximately 1,500 employees were engaged in manufacturing in 1949; 75 percent of them were women.
A new depot was established at Plympton in 1959, due to increasing sales in the Devon and Cornwall region. It had a capacity to handle six million lbs (2.7 million kg) of biscuits each year.
Jacob’s is acquired by Associated Biscuits
Jacob’s was the third largest biscuit manufacturer in Britain when it was acquired by Associated Biscuits in 1960. Family members, who controlled 70 percent of voting shares, approved the sale.
The Jacob’s Cream Cracker was the third highest-selling biscuit in Britain by 1969.
Associated Biscuits dedicated the vast majority of its advertising expenditure to the strong Jacob’s brand from 1972.
The Jacob’s sweet biscuit product lines, other than the Club, were phased out in favour of the Huntley & Palmers brand in the 1980s.
The Aintree site employed 2,800 people by 1983.
The Aintree site was modernised at a cost of £25 million in 1986. Its leading lines were the Jacob’s Cream Cracker and the Jacob’s Club biscuit.
Voluntary redundancies and natural wastage had seen the staff reduced to 1,800, with a further 400 temporary staff during the Christmas period, by 1988.
Nabisco continued to invest heavily in the Aintree plant, which absorbed much of the production from the Bermondsey site, which was closed in 1989.
The Huntley & Palmer name was discontinued in 1990, and all products were relabelled under the Jacob’s brand.
Jacob’s is acquired by United Biscuits United Biscuits acquired Associated Biscuits for £200 million in 2004.
United Biscuits rebranded all of its savoury biscuits under the Jacob’s name from 2014. Jacob’s gained the Mini Cheddars product, but lines such as Club, Fig Rolls, BN and Iced Gems were rebranded as McVitie’s.
The Aintree site produced over 55,000 tonnes of products in 2014. 900 people were employed at the factory.
It was announced that the Aintree site would receive an investment of £10 million in 2015. The site is the centre of United Biscuits savoury snack production, and brands manufactured include Twiglets, Mini Cheddars and Club, as well as Jacob’s.
Jacob’s held 25 percent of the British savoury biscuit market in 2015.
Reports emerged in 2018 that Jacob’s could be sold in a deal that valued the business at £100 million. Potential buyers included Mondelez and Burton Biscuits.
Meredith & Drew became the largest biscuit manufacturer in Europe.
William Meredith
William Meredith (1803 – 1868) was born in Bristol. He established a bakery at Shadwell in East London in 1830. William George Drew (1813 – 1867) was employed as his principal assistant. Following a quarrel between the two men, William Drew left the business to establish his own biscuit bakery in 1852.
William Meredith established a steam-powered factory on Commercial Road East, and focused on the public house trade for his biscuits, pound cakes and Banbury cakes. The business traded as Meredith & Son by 1856.
Drew & Sons
William Drew established a steam-powered factory on Shadwell High Street. Like Meredith, he focused on supplying the public house and hotel trade with biscuits. He employed 30 men by 1861.
William Drew died from a heart attack in 1867, and an obituary described him as “a man of remarkable energy and enterprise”, remembered for his charitable interests. Management of the business passed to his wife Barbara Drew, and his only son, Lear James Drew (1840 – 1917).
Drew & Sons produced over 100 different biscuit varieties by 1877.
Meredith & Drew
Frederick Meredith and Lear Drew merged their interests as Meredith & Drew, with a capital of £107,000, in 1891. The merged business was one of the largest biscuit manufacturers in Britain.
Meredith & Drew received its first Royal Warrant, from Queen Victoria, in 1894.
The Meredith & Drew factory at Shadwell was extended in 1896. Production was still concentrated on the manufacture of biscuits for the hospitality industry, particularly public houses and hotels.
Meredith & Drew was one of the best known businesses in the East End of London by 1897. The company had developed a reputation for fair treatment of its customers and workforce. Lear Drew was chairman with H D Rawlings (1836 – 1904) as vice chairman.
The Wright stuff
Meredith & Drew merged with Wright & Son of Shadwell through an exchange of shares in 1905. Thomas Reuben Wright (1868 – 1923) was appointed managing director of the company.
Lear Drew died with an estate valued at £30,986 in 1917. He was remembered as a genial man.
Thomas Reuben Wright died with an estate valued at £73,530 in 1923.
The Shadwell factory employed a workforce of around 1,000 people by 1925.
A factory was acquired at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire in 1927.
Meredith & Drew launched the Betta Biscuit, a low-cost product, from 1931. Its success allowed the business to grow to become the largest biscuit manufacturer in Europe by 1934.
Meredith & Drew had six factories across England by 1939. The London site, which was also the largest, was destroyed during the Blitz in 1940, and production was permanently relocated to plants at Oldham, Brighouse and High Wycombe. A factory was also acquired at Halifax. Company headquarters were relocated to Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
Schoolchildren help to load Meredith & Drew biscuit tins onto a lorry, to be sent to liberated Europe (1945)
The merger of McVitie & Price and Macfarlane Lang to form United Biscuits in 1948 saw Meredith & Drew lose its position as the largest biscuit manufacturer in Britain.
29 different biscuits were produced in the post-war period, including shortcake, digestive, Marie, Nice, bourbon, custard cream and ginger nut.
Meredith & Drew employed 2,500 people and employed an authorised share capital of £1 million by 1951. Geoffrey Anthony Edward Drew Wright (born 1908), son of T R Wright, was managing director.
A new factory was established at Cinderford, Gloucestershire in 1951. It employed 300 people and focused on cream cracker production.
Four factories were closed in the 1950s and production was centralised at Halifax, Cinderford and Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
The Cinderford factory was closed with the loss of 346 jobs in 1962. Production was transferred to the Halifax and Ashby-de-la-Zouch plants, which were extended and modernised.
Own-label production for Marks & Spencer and a strong presence in the licensed trade saw Meredith & Drew control around five percent of the British potato crisp market by 1963.
Crisps contributed to an increasing share of turnover, and the Ashby-de-la-Zouch facility began to struggle to meet demand. A new crisp factory with a staff of 280 was acquired in Lanarkshire in 1963.
Meredith & Drew was strong in own-label production, savoury biscuits, the catering trade and potato crisps in 1967.
United Biscuits era
Meredith & Drew, with four percent of the British biscuit market, was acquired by United Biscuits for £2 million in 1967.
United Biscuits acquired Kenyon, Son & Craven, the manufacturer of KP nuts, for £3.5 million in 1968. Kenyon, Son & Craven was merged into Meredith & Drew.
Meredith & Drew crisps were rebranded under the stronger KP name. Meredith & Drew advertising was wound down, and rationalisation saw the Meredith & Drew biscuit brand retired in the early 1980s.
The Halifax site was closed with the loss of 990 jobs in 1989, and production was relocated to Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
The Ashby-de-la-Zouch biscuit factory was closed with the loss of 900 jobs in 2004.
United Biscuits continues to employ around 2,000 people in Ashby-de-la-Zouch through its distribution centre and KP Snacks factory.
The Meredith & Drew brand was reintroduced as a premium biscuit brand with a focus on the catering trade from 2018.
Huntley & Palmers became the largest manufacturer of biscuits in the world.
George Palmer (1818 – 1897) was born to a Quaker farming family in Somerset. His mother was a cousin of Cyrus and James Clark, founders of the well-known shoe manufacturing business.
George Palmer (1818 – 1897)
George Palmer was apprenticed to an uncle as a miller and confectioner in 1832. In 1841 he entered into a partnership with a cousin by marriage, Thomas Huntley (1802 – 1857), who owned a firm in Reading, founded in 1822, which sold high quality biscuits across much of southern England.
Huntley and Palmer took over a disused silk factory on the bank of the Kennet & Avon canal in 1843. Palmer introduced steam power and mechanisation to the business. With engineer William Exall, Palmer introduced the first continuously-running biscuit machinery in the world in 1846.
Huntley & Palmer employed 500 people by 1850. Sixteen tons of biscuits were produced every week by 1851, with distribution across England.
When Huntley died in 1857, annual turnover of the firm was £125,000 (around £12.5 million in 2014). George Palmer bought out Huntley’s son and took into partnership his brothers, Samuel and William Isaac Palmer, the former managing the London office and the latter running the factory.
Huntley & Palmers was producing thousands of tons of biscuits every year by 1865. Ship’s biscuit was a major product. The firm responded quickly to consumer demand: following the success of the Pearl biscuit introduced by rival Peek Frean of Bermondsey, Huntley & Palmers introduced their own version within a matter of months.
800 men and boys were employed by 1865. By this time Huntley & Palmers had introduced a compulsory employee sick fund, and provided a reading room at a small cost to subscribing workers.
Huntley & Palmers employed nearly 1,000 people by 1867.
The second generation of the Palmer family took over the management of the business from 1867-8. By now the business was easily the largest biscuit manufacturer in the world. Around 25 percent of production was exported. Sales grew as afternoon tea became a middle class tradition.
Nearly 2,500 people were employed by 1872.
The Thin Arrowroot biscuit was introduced from 1884. The Breakfast biscuit, an unsweetened alternative to toast, was introduced from around 1892.
Nearly 400 varieties of biscuit and cake were produced by 1892. Leading product lines included the Ginger Nut, Milk, Empire and Colonial biscuits. During peak periods, close to 5,000 men and women were employed.
Joseph Hatton (1837 – 1907), the editor of the Sunday Times, suggested that George Palmer could be described as the “father of modern Reading”. The huge population growth of the town was largely due to the biscuit industry.
By the 1890s the Huntley & Palmer name was one of the best known brands in the world.
George Palmer died in 1897. That year the firm produced 23,000 tons of biscuits and recorded a turnover of over £1.25 million (c. £142 million in 2014).
