Vestey Group
The
Vestey Group (
Vestey Group Ltd) (formerly
Vestey Brothers) is a privately owned
UK group of companies, comprised of an international food product business (that includes meats,
dairy products, frozen vegetables,
bakery products, food services and trading) and significant
cattle ranching and
sugar cane farming interests in
Brazil and
Venezuela.
Sir William (later Baron) Vestey established the Vestey empire in 1897 from a family butchery business in
Liverpool. They were a pioneer of
refrigeration, opening a cold store in
London in
1895.
The Vestey brothers were initially sent to
South America in an attempt to make their fortune because the economy there was booming. They started by buying game birds and storing them in the cold stores of companies before shipping them to Liverpool.
International expansion
These early activities soon developed into importing
beef and beef products into the UK, which in turn led to them owning cattle
ranches in
Brazil,
Venezuela and
Australia and their own meat processing factories in
Argentina,
Uruguay,
New Zealand and
Australia (in
1914 Vestey Brothers built a meat processing works at Bullocky Point,
Darwin, Australia). In 1915 the brothers moved to Buenos Aires to avoid paying
income tax in the UK.
Vestey Brothers also developed a business importing
eggs from
China, and during
World War II they were a major importer of powdered egg.
It is said that by
1930 Vesteys had 30,000 employees world wide and a net value of 300,000 pounds.
Shipping
To ship the meat back to the UK the Vesteys created their own shipping company, the
Blue Star Line, registered on July 28
1911 in London and Liverpool with a capital of 100,000
pounds. In fact, they purchased their first two ships (
Pakeha renamed
Broderick, and
Rangatira renamed
Brodmore) in
1909.
The line owned a number of refrigerated ships (
Reefers), and business later expanded to countries as far apart as
Egypt and
China, carrying passengers in addition to various foodstuffs. Blue Star was finally sold to
P&O Nedlloyd for 60,000,000
GBP in
1998, although most of the refrigerated ships were retained by Vestey's
Albion Reefers subsidiary, which later merged with
Hamburg Sud to form
Star Reefers, finally sold off in July
2001.
UK developments
In the course of their expansion, Vestey bought a number of other companies, acquiring
Oxo and London's
Oxo Tower through the purchase of the
Liebig Extract of Meat Company.
In the middle of the 20th century, Vestey companies dominated the UK
wholesale and
retail meat trade, selling refrigerated and canned meats, as well as
leather and other by-products. Having saved cash reserves for the purpose, they entered into a
price war with the US owned importers to largely drive them from the UK market. Vestey developed the country-wide
Dewhurst chain of butchers shops, which was eventually disbanded in
1995 in the face of increasing competition from the
supermarket chains. Dewhurst were the first to introduce the innovation of
glass windows on butcher's shops - previously meat had been exposed to the elements and
pollution.
Involvement in Australia
The Vestey Group had acquired a large amount of land in
Australia, and using the
Australian Aborigional people as cheap labour. This sparked
The Gurindji Strike where the Group was forced by
Gough Whitlam's government to return part of the land they owned to its indigenous owners.
After a period of major restructuring in the late 1990s, Vestey Group today consists of
Angliss Internationaland significant cattle ranching and
sugar cane farming interests in
Brazil and
Venezuela.
In March 2006, Vestey Group reached an agreement with the Venezuelan government in respect of a dispute over the ownership and productivity of its farms.
Lord (Sam) Vestey, the great grandson of
1st Lord Vestey, is the current head of the family and Chairman of the Group. He owns the 6,000
acre (24 km²)
Stowell Park Estate at
Stowell Park,
Gloucestershire, valued at
£15,000,000.
The Vesteys endowed the
Vestey Professorship of Food Safety and Veterinary Public Health at the
Royal Veterinary College,
University of London.
*
Angliss International*
Classic Fine Foods*
Agropecuraris Flora*The
Blue Star Line was sold to
P&O Nedlloyd for 60,000,000
GBP in
1998.
*
Blue Star Ship Management Ltd*Dewhurst butchers - disbanded 1995
*
Union Cold Storage CompanyGuardian, March 12, 2000
See also
*
Vertical integration*
List of British companies
