What happened to Huntley & Palmers Breakfast biscuits?

[wherewasI]

What happened to Huntley & Palmers Breakfast biscuits?


I know, a lousy name for biscuits that went great with cheese. What they had to do with breakfast I don't know.
Unlike a cracker, these could be eaten on there own,as you would a digestive.

I think that name must have killed tehm off. Thye were a thick biscuit almost hard-sponge like in mouth-feel. Like a Jaffa cake is, but more dense and crunchy. Or a bit like a hard farley's rusk but not sweet. I loved tehm as a kid. a substantial biscuit. Have not seen them since the mid 70s.

Breakfast???? I don't know. Maybe the marketing dept at H & P thought they could sell them as toast substitute? This is a one-man campaign to bring them back.

Huntley and Palmers Breakfast biscuits ..sort of a square biscuit rounded off at the corners with HP baked into them.

[wherewasI]

Re: What happened to Huntley & Palmers Breakfast biscuits?

I've sort of answered my own question: See:


http://www.huntleyandpalmers.org.uk/...&s=0KdjhegIhB4

A piccy.

[sf1378]

Re: What happened to Huntley & Palmers Breakfast biscuits?

I live in Reading, home of Huntley & Palmers By the 1920s it as well as rivals Peak Freen merged to become Associated Biscuit Manufacturers Ltd; then in the 1960s with Jacobs joining it was all reorganised into Associated Biscuits. By 1976 it ceased biscuit manufacture at Reading. It was bought out by Nabisco of the USA in 1982, part of General Mills Products Corporation. In the mid 1980s there was a management buyout and they decided to divest themselves of a lot of subsidiaries-including Kenner Parker Toys, Milton Bradley, Denys Fisher and Palitoy. They owned other brands like Kraft and Quaker. When they sold up they decided to cease trading in the UK and much of Europe selling a lot of brands to Nestle or working via licencing deals whereby Nestle marketed and produced European versions of their cereals whilst they did the same in the USA and Canada. Shreddies and Shredded Wheat, Cheerios brands becoming Nestle over here for example. Nabisco had also owned Jacobs biscuits as part of their initial buyout of Huntley & Palmers.

Their Head Offices and main factory was in Reading on Kings Road as well as the historic old red brick building by the canal side of the River Kennet that had been the original H & P factory. The head offices were sold off to Prudential and was all knocked down with the site reused to build their megalithic European Corporate H.Q. whilst the redbrick building was sold off to property developers and a turned into appartments-there is an ornate historic big brass plated badge on the front of the building commemorating the history of Huntley & Palmers as part of Readings industrial past.

I was surprised to hear that since 2006 it has returned owned by the Freeman family who've had 3 generations in the biscuit business, they hope to re-establish the brand back onto the mainstream market as well as bring back focus on the eponimous Huntley & Palmers signature biscuit tinned product.

Hope that helps.

[alcockell]

Re: What happened to Huntley & Palmers Breakfast biscuits?

Might interest you to know that Nabisco have recently released the Belvita range of breakfast biscuits. They're actually not that bad... will be shoving a box of them in my desk at work, so if I am in a hurry...

[almay]

Re: What happened to Huntley & Palmers Breakfast biscuits?

What happened to Huntley & Palmers Breakfast biscuits?


I know, a lousy name for biscuits that went great with cheese. What they had to do with breakfast I don't know.
Unlike a cracker, these could be eaten on there own,as you would a digestive.


I think that name must have killed tehm off. Thye were a thick biscuit almost hard-sponge like in mouth-feel. Like a Jaffa cake is, but more dense and crunchy. Or a bit like a hard farley's rusk but not sweet. I loved tehm as a kid. a substantial biscuit. Have not seen them since the mid 70s.

Breakfast???? I don't know. Maybe the marketing dept at H & P thought they could sell them as toast substitute? This is a one-man campaign to bring them back.

Huntley and Palmers Breakfast biscuits ..sort of a square biscuit rounded off at the corners with HP baked into them.

I may have some insight into them as my father worked on the breakfast biscuit production line towards the end of their existence. I am dredging the depths of my memory and so please forgive me for any errors I make.

Breakfast biscuits were made in their own special plant as the production method was different from any other biscuits. As I understand it, the biscuits were baked in closed trays in a vertical travelling oven. The trays were somewhat temperamental and it was not unknown for one to become detached from the chains and come crashing down, bringing those below it with it and thus creating a huge mess that had to be sorted out. There was much speculation as to how the inits HP were put on. Some said it was using beer and other suggested caustic soda solution. They were an immensely popular biscuit and of all of those that disappeared with the demise of H&P's, I think that they are missed the most.

[wherewasI]

Re: What happened to Huntley & Palmers Breakfast biscuits?

Thanks for all your answers, I am surprised at teh depth of knowledge on here. So there si hope, if a small one, it seems it was corporate wrangling rahter than poor sales that killed them. They were a taste from my chiildhood, I loved them.

[wherewasI]

Re: What happened to Huntley & Palmers Breakfast biscuits?

They were a taste from my chiildhood, totally unique with nothing similar, unique in the same way a Jaffa Cake or say the British favourite, Marmite is. You can't really comapre them to any other biscuit.
I will definitely Hunt down (SWIDT) Belvita if they are similar.