pastry founded 1931 headquarters nottingham england key people ken parr products pork pies sausage rolls owner vision capital addo foods group via eliot holdings ltd number of employees 2 000 subsidiaries bowyers farmhouse palethorpes parr s walls website www.pork farms.co.uk pork farms is a nottingham based british producer and distributor of mainly pork based bakery products . contents 1 history 2 present 3 references 4 external links history edit in the early 1940s recently city and guilds qualified baker ken parr took out a 9 000 loan to set up his own pie shop . he developed a reputation founded on good baking and developed the first original pork pie based on an old recipe with signature dark and crispy pastry . he then bought another local pie shop founded in 1931 which traded under the name pork farms which he adopted for all shops after that . 1 in the mid 1960s parr s business was bought by food tycoon w. garfield weston who made parr chairman . in 1969 rival nottingham pie company tn parr formerly owned by parr s uncle but then by samworth brothers bought out pork farms again bringing together the two companies together under the pork farms brand . in 1972 pork farms bought rival holland s pies . in 1971 the group was floated on the london stock exchange as pork farms ltd. in 1974 pork farms and northern foods created joint venture company porkdown ltd to supply meat products to french foods group danone . but immediately after production started danone undertook a group wide review and on deciding to concentrate on their milk based products line closed down the contract . the resultant losses closed porkdown and in 1978 lead to the agreed sale of pork farms to northern foods after the samworth family agreed sale of their shares to the group . later merged by northern with both palethorpes of market drayton and bowyers of trowbridge wiltshire to form pork farms bowyers the company sold the bowyers and palethorpes pork sausage business and brands to kerry group in 2001 to concentrate on baked meat products . 2 present edit bought by vision capital in 2007 3 with european union laws focusing on the need to produce melton mowbray pork pies within a defined distance of melton mowbray the company chose to close the trowbridge plant and invest 12million into the nottingham plant to increase melton mowbray pork pie production . 4 today the company employs over 2 000 people at five locations in poole nottingham market drayton and shaftesbury . 5 pork farms has doubled the capacity of their data capture system at their queens drive manufacturing site and all quality paperwork has now been removed from the production process . ccp qc and qa results are electronically captured and monitored by their data capture system . pork farms marked its 80th anniversary with a 1m relaunch and a new range of slices . the new packaging is designed to flag up the company s heritage it carries the straplines making & baking since 1931 and butchers bakers master piemakers . 6 their recent tv campaign based around finding the united kingdom s hidden gems was created to drive an interest in a category that was long devoid of advertising support . 7 references edit about us . pork farms . retrieved 2010 06 30 . jobs could go at bowyers factory . this is wiltshire . 2001 12 07 . retrieved 2010 06 30 . pork farms . vision capital . retrieved 2010 06 30 . eu blamed for pie company s move . bbc news . 2007 07 12 . retrieved 2010 06 30 . history . pork farms . retrieved 2010 06 30 . pork farms relaunch emphasises heritage . the grocer . retrieved 2011 04 28 . pork farms hidden gems . pork farms . retrieved 2016 07 27 . external links edit official website page at vision capital v t e british pies sweet apple pie bakewell tart banoffee pie bedfordshire clanger black bun custard tart manchester tart mince pie rhubarb pie treacle tart savoury bacon and egg pie bedfordshire clanger bridie butter pie chicken and mushroom pie corned beef pie cornish pasty cottage pie cumberland pie curry pie devizes pie fish pie game pie homity pie killie pie meat and potato pie melton mowbray pork pie pork pie scotch pie shepherd s pie squab pie stargazy pie steak pie steak and kidney pie steak and oyster pie woolton pie manufacturers clark s pies dickinson & morris fray bentos ginsters higgidy holland s pies mr kipling peter s poole s pork farms pukka pies shire foods square pie wall s wrights pies retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title pork farms & oldid 733112238 categories british pie brandscompanies based in nottinghamshirecompanies established in 1931companies formerly listed on the london stock exchangemeat processing in the united kingdomnorthern foodsbakeries of the united kingdomsausage companieshidden categories pages using infobox company with unsupported parameters navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search 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