Pork Farms is a Nottingham-based British producer and distributor of mainly pork-based bakery products. The company grew from a pie shop founded in 1931, and was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1971. After several sales and amalgamations, since 2017 the brand has been owned by Lloyds Development Capital.
History
In the early 1940s, recently City and Guilds qualified baker Ken Parr received a £9,000 loan to open 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 of his shops.[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.[2]