Rowntree's

Did You Know?

• Rowntree's largely eschewed advertising before becoming a public company in 1897, believing quality products would speak for themselves.
• In 1932, Rowntree changed its advertising agency to the London branch of J. Walter Thompson.
• Rowntree's pioneered festive selection boxes, which have been a staple Christmas gift in the UK for over a century.

Victorian era

Henry Isaac Rowntree, a Quaker, founded the company in 1862 at Castlegate in York after buying out the Tuke family. In 1864, he purchased an old iron foundry at Tanner's Moat for £1,000 and moved production there. By 1869, the factory employed 12 men, but financial difficulties led his brother Joseph Rowntree to join as a full partner, formally establishing H.I. Rowntree & Co. The introduction of Fruit Pastilles in 1881, competing against French imports, proved highly successful, accounting for about 25% of the company's tonnage by 1887.

This success funded a Van Houten press for producing chocolate with reduced cocoa butter, rivaling Cadbury's Cocoa Essence. In the 1890s, sales more than quadrupled as public demand for confectionery grew. Seebohm Rowntree set up a small research laboratory in 1889 for analyzing ingredients and competitors' products. To accommodate expansion, Rowntree acquired a 20-acre site at Haxby Road in 1890, inspired by Cadbury's Bournville factory.

Rowntree's Fruit Gums were introduced in 1893. The unlimited partnership became a public limited company, Rowntree & Co, in 1897 to secure external funding. Around 1898, the company acquired cocoa plantations in the West Indies, and in 1899 it introduced its first milk chocolate block.

Current branded products

The Rowntree name is still used for Rowntree's Fruit Gums, Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles, and Jelly Tots. Jelly Tots, launched in 1965, are soft, chewy, sugar-coated sweets containing 25% fruit juices with no artificial colours or flavours. Rowntree's Randoms were introduced in 2009. The brand also appears on ice lollies made by Froneri for Nestlé.