George Weston - From Bread To Biscuits

From Bread To Biscuits

Early in the new century, Weston began moving beyond bread into biscuits. The bread business had always been very competitive and margins were low, while biscuits offered higher margins. In addition to 'fancy biscuits,' or what today would be called cookies, the company made sodas. A 1904 advertisement boasted that the new Weston's Royal Cream Soda Biscuits were the only ones in Canada sold in air-tight packaging. Within a few years, the Model Bakery Co., Limited, had a dozen "Ontario biscuit travellers" or salesman, offering Weston’s Biscuits to merchants.

In 1911, George Weston's bread business underwent another amalgamation, this time on a larger scale, joining with other manufacturers in Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg, to form the Canada Bread Company. In merging their businesses the Canada Bread partners agreed not to compete with the new company they had created by refraining from making bread for a ten year period. The Model Bakery became part of the assets of Canada Bread and George Weston became a company director. Meantime, a new "Weston's Biscuit Factory," at the corner of Peter and Richmond streets in Toronto, went into production.