HISTORY
Like most great successes, the Pork Farms story starts with a great idea, an entrepreneurial spirit and a dedication to quality. In the early 1940s, Ken Parr - a local Nottingham lad fresh out of training with his City and Guild’s Baker’s Certificate in hand – had all three. He set out with a loan of £9,000 (a whopping sum back in the day) to set up his own pie shop in the city and quickly gained a enviable reputation for baking delicious pork pies with his signature dark and crispy pastry.
Aware that he was onto a winner, Ken soon had his eye on the competition and took over another local pie shop called Pork Farms. With his eye to detail, baking prowess and ability to spread the word, Ken soon transformed Pork Farms into a fantastic success and set out on the road to expanding his empire by buying more and more outlets.
By the mid-1960s Ken’s empire was flying and caught the attention of legendary food tycoon Garfield Weston, who promptly snapped up the business and made Ken the Chairman. At the same time, a rival Nottingham pie company was also making a good reputation for itself (good baking must have run in the family as TN Parr was formerly owned by Ken’s uncle!), and in 1969 bought out Pork Farms, bringing together the two great pork pie legacies.
Since, then the company has gone from strength-to-strength - winning a string of regional and national awards along the way – and now employs over 2,000 people over three locations. However, despite our size, we have never lost sight of Ken’s spirit or dedication to quality: we still bake our pastry in his signature dark and crispy way and use traditional award-winning recipes for the fillings to make tasty good food.
