Birds Eye - History and Production

History and Production

The brand and its underlying business is held by different owners in various territories:

• Europe - Unilever announced in August 2006 that the business was sold to UK-based private equity group Permira. The company's staple product, the Fish Finger, was developed in its old factory in Great Yarmouth, by a Mr H A J Scott. Frozen vegetables were produced from 1946 using the new fast-freezing process, which are now produced with beefburgers and potato waffles in Lowestoft, employing 700 people.

The location of the factory was essential to the "one-hour to frozen" promise formerly made on Birds Eye peas, although commercial decisions have led to this claim being quietly dropped as the time has risen to two and a half hours. There is also a fish products factory in Hull employing 600 people.

Birds Eye closed a factory in Grimsby in 2005, with the loss of 650 jobs, which had been making fish fingers since 1929. The Grimsby factory on Ladysmith Road was hit by fire, suspected to be set by six local youths on 12 September 2007. The fire was so severe that local residents had to be evacuated.

• United States - As part of General Foods, it merged with Kraft Foods and Philip Morris USA in what became the Altria Group. Birds Eye was sold to Dean Foods in 1993 and was independently owned by Birds Eye Foods of Rochester, New York until purchased by Pinnacle Foods in 2009. As part of Pinnacle Foods, Birds Eye also acquired Freshlike from the Allen Canning Company.

• Australia and New Zealand - Birds Eye brand was owned by Simplot Australia Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the J.R. Simplot Company. Simplot purchased Birds Eye and many of Australia's leading food brands from Pacific Dunlop's Pacific Brands in the mid-1990s. Today, Birds Eye is the Australia's leading frozen brand with a line of innovative frozen vegetables, potatoes, and seafood. Birds Eye products are produced at the company's processing facilities in Devonport and Ulverstone, Tasmania, and Bathurst, New South Wales, as well as from imported ingredients. Some seafood items are processed overseas and the completed product imported.