‘We have to be constantly innovating’

In 2007, the Batchelors food factory in Kennington Road was under threat of closure. Staff were meant to be celebrating its 50th anniversary, but new owners Premier Foods were about to shut it down.

“Our staff were excellent during that time,” factory manager Simon Ellmore told the Kentish Express in 2017.

“Closure was announced in 2007, but everybody really knuckled down.

“Then it all turned around when it was decided to expand the site instead, and we haven’t looked back since.”

Premier Foods, which acquired the plant from Campbell’s in 2006, didn’t just choose to keep the factory open, but invested millions into it too.

It ploughed £20m into the site over the following three years, trebling its output and recruiting 180 extra staff.

That investment paid off handsomely in early 2020 when the firm behind cupboard-filler products such as Bisto, Paxo and Angel Delight recorded a big sales boom.

The pandemic meant sales soared by 15% that March during the run-up and beginning of the nationwide lockdown.

Mr Ellmore, who joined Batchelors in 2001, said: “Like a lot of industries, it has been through a lot of change.

“We have to be constantly innovating to keep up with it and stay ahead.”

Looking back, Batchelors can trace its roots to the late 19th century when founder William Batchelor began packing tea in Sheffield in 1895.

By the time the Ashford factory opened in August 1957, the firm had expanded into a national company, then owned by Unilever, and had introduced items including processed peas and its famous dried soup mixes.

Memories correspondent Steve Salter is away

The Willesborough Road factory seen just before its opening in 1957

Weighing out spices ready for adding to bulk ingredients

Quality control in the kitchen in the 1960s

Quality control checking pea weights

A warehouse operator at work