Peek Frean produced nearly 100 million shortbread biscuits in just three months in 1912. However Peek Frean management countered that strikers had intimidated non-striking staff and that their wages were higher than the Bermondsey average. The strikers wanted higher pay and the abolition of short shifts. A third of company profits were spent on employee welfare by 1911.Ī Bermondsey women’s strike in August 1911 saw 1,200 employees refuse to work. Benefits included in-house medical and dentistry care (to which the company paid £3,000 a year in 1911), and a subsidised staff canteen. Peek Frean was an enlightened employer for the period. Peek Frean’s Family Circle biscuit assortment. The Bourbon, a cocoa-flavoured cream sandwich biscuit, was introduced in 1910. Production of the long-established Pearl biscuit ended in 1907. Over two billion biscuits were sold every year, amounting to over sixty tons a day. Peek Frean employed over 2,500 people by 1907. As well as the Pat-A-Cake, 250 different varieties of biscuit were sold.

It was probably the highest-selling biscuit in Britain. Annual sales for this single product line amounted to £160,000. Nearly 400 million Pat-A-Cake biscuits weighing a total of 6.5 million lbs were sold in 1906. Carr massively increased the company’s advertising budget. Sales in the first week totalled over twelve tons.Īrthur Carr (1855 – 1947) became chairman and managing director of Peek Frean from 1904. It was to prove a major success for the company as the first biscuit marketed at an affordable price. Invented by manager George Roberts, it was the first mass-produced biscuit that moved away from plain Thin Arrowroot type products. The shortbread-based Pat-A-Cake biscuit was launched in 1902. Peek Frean held a Royal Warrant to supply biscuits to King Edward VII. Peek Frean biscuits were distributed through 45,000 outlets. Peek Frean was registered as a limited company with a share capital of £500,000 in 1901. Peek Frean becomes a limited company introduces the mass-market biscuit You can read the first part of this history here. The business introduced the Bourbon, Custard Cream, Marie and Garibaldi biscuit varieties. Peek Frean pioneered the modern British biscuit.

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