Rathbones Bakeries was a bakery founded in 1893, in Wigan, Lancashire. By 1997 it was owned by Greencore, through that company's purchase of Kears Group [1] Two years later, Kears Group rebranded itself as Rathbones. [2]
Kears was bought from Greencore by Finedon Mill of Northampton, for £20.6 million in April 2004, [3] [4] a year in which it had sales of £100 million, with customers including Morrisons and Tesco. [5] Following a fire the company went into receivership, with part of its operation sold to Warburtons and parts to Morrisons in 2005. [5] [6]