Walkers Shortbread

Last updated

Walker's Shortbread Ltd.
Type Private
Industry Baked goods
Founded1898 (1898) in Torphins, Scotland
FounderJoseph Walker
Headquarters Aberlour, Scotland
Area served
Worldwide
Products Shortbread, biscuits, cookies and crackers
Website www.walkersshortbread.com

Walker's Shortbread is a Scottish manufacturer of shortbread, biscuits, cookies and crackers. The company's well-known shortbread is baked in the Moray village of Aberlour, following a recipe developed by Joseph Walker in 1898. [1] Walkers Shortbread operates four factories in Aberlour, where the company is also headquartered, and two in nearby Elgin, Scotland. [2]

Contents

The company is Scotland's biggest exporter of food [3] and employs over 4,000 people in 15 locations. [4] It is sold in tartan packaging all over the world. [5]

History

The business was founded by Joseph Walker in the village of Aberlour, Speyside, in 1898.

In 1992, Walkers Shortbread started producing oaten biscuits for Duchy Originals, having been approached the previous year. [6]

In 2006, Walkers announced that the bakery in Aberlour would be closing and turning into a research facility for the company. [7]

The company has received the Queen's Award for Export Achievement three times. [8] Walkers Shortbread is also still owned and managed by the Walker family. [9]

In 2017 Walkers Shortbread was granted a Royal Warrant of Appointment from Her Majesty The Queen for the supply of Shortbread to the Royal Household. [10]

In 2018 the company's profits were diminished by a global increase in the price of butter by around 50% [11] due to global supply shortages and demand increases, resulting in the company seeing a 60% drop in operating profit. [12]

In 2020, the company rebranded, changing their name to Walker's Shortbread Ltd. [13]

Locations

Walker's Shortbread have their headquarters at Aberlour House in Aberlour and have a production site in Elgin.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cookie</span> Small, flat and sweetened baked food (biscuit)

A cookie, or a biscuit, is a baked or cooked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, nuts, etc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nabisco</span> American snack company

Nabisco is an American manufacturer of cookies and snacks headquartered in East Hanover, New Jersey. The company is a subsidiary of Illinois-based Mondelēz International.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biscuit</span> Sweet baked product

A biscuit is a flour-based baked and shaped food product. In most countries biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be savoury, similar to crackers. Types of biscuit include sandwich biscuits, digestive biscuits, ginger biscuits, shortbread biscuits, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate-coated marshmallow treats, Anzac biscuits, biscotti, and speculaas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Girl Scout Cookies</span> Cookies sold by the Girl Scout Organization

Girl Scout Cookies are cookies sold by Girl Scouts in the United States to raise funds to support Girl Scout councils and individual troops. The cookies are widely popular and are commonly sold by going door-to-door, online, through school or town fundraisers, or at "cookie booths" commonly set up at storefronts. The program is intended to both raise money and improve the financial literacy of girls. During an average selling season, more than one million girls sell over 200 million packages of cookies and raise over $800 million. The first known sale of cookies by Girl Scouts was in 1917. Cookie sales are organized by 112 regional Girl Scout councils who select one of two national bakeries to buy cookies from.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shortbread</span> Scottish biscuit

Shortbread or shortie is a traditional Scottish biscuit usually made from one part white sugar, two parts butter, and three to four parts plain wheat flour. Unlike many other biscuits and baked goods, shortbread does not contain any leavening, such as baking powder or baking soda. Shortbread is widely associated with Christmas and Hogmanay festivities in Scotland, and some Scottish brands are exported around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keebler Company</span> American cookie and former cracker manufacturer

The Keebler Company is an American cookie and former cracker manufacturer. Founded in 1853, it has produced numerous baked snacks, advertised with the Keebler Elves. Keebler had marketed its brands such as Cheez-It, Chips Deluxe, Club Crackers, E.L. Fudge Cookies, Famous Amos, Fudge Shoppe Cookies, Murray cookies, Austin, Plantation, Vienna Fingers, Town House Crackers, Wheatables, Sandie's Shortbread, Pizzarias Pizza Chips, Chachos and Zesta Crackers, among others. The cookie and cracker lines were separated when Kellogg's sold the cookie line and the rights of the Keebler name to Ferrero SpA. The cracker lines are now marketed under the Kellogg's or Sunshine names. The Keebler slogans are "Uncommonly Good" and "a little elfin magic goes a long way". Tom Shutter and Leo Burnett wrote the familiar jingle. The Kellogg Company sold Keebler to the Italian-owned Ferrero SpA in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aberlour</span> Human settlement in Scotland

Aberlour is a village in Moray, Scotland, 12 miles (20 km) south of Elgin on the road to Grantown. The Lour burn is a tributary of the River Spey, and it and the surrounding parish are both named Aberlour, but the name is more commonly used in reference to the village which straddles the stream and flanks the Spey – although the full name of the village is Charlestown of Aberlour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">McVitie's</span> British brand of snack foods

McVitie's is a British snack food brand owned by United Biscuits. The name derives from the original Scottish biscuit maker, McVitie & Price, Ltd., established in 1830 on Rose Street in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company moved to various sites in the city before completing the St Andrews Biscuit Works factory on Robertson Avenue in the Gorgie district in 1888. The company also established one in Glasgow and two large manufacturing plants south of the border, in Heaton Chapel, Stockport, and Park Royal, London. There are seven McVitie's factories in the UK, with each producing a different types of biscuit; the Harlesden site in north-west London manufactures the chocolate digestives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fox's Biscuits</span> British biscuit manufacturer

Fox's Biscuits is a British biscuit manufacturer, founded by the Fox family in a terraced house, 17 Whitaker Street, Batley in West Yorkshire in 1853. The head office and main factory are based in the town and has another site in Wesham in Lancashire. Its biscuits are exported to Europe, North America, and Asia. The house in Whittaker Street still stands. The company was purchased by Northern Foods in 1977, which was acquired by 2 Sisters Food Group in 2011. In October 2020 Ferrero bought Fox's Biscuits for £246 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caramel shortbread</span> Biscuit confectionery

Caramel shortbread, also known as caramel squares, caramel slice, millionaire's shortbread, millionaire's slice, chocolate caramel shortbread, and Wellington squares is a biscuit confectionery item composed of a rectangular, triangular or circular shortbread biscuit base topped with caramel and milk chocolate. Multiple variations exist which substitute or add ingredients to cater to different tastes, dietary requirements or ingredient availability.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baxters</span> Scottish food manufacturer

Baxters Food Group Limited, also known as Baxters of Speyside or Baxters, is a food processing company, based in Fochabers, Scotland. It produces foods such as canned soups, canned meat products, sour pickles, sauces, vinegars, anti-pasti, chutneys, fruit preserves and salad and meat condiments. Products are sold under the Baxters brand as well as a variety of brands owned, or licensed, to the group. Baxters has remained a private family company for four generations, during which time it has expanded significantly by acquiring other business within the United Kingdom and internationally. Baxters holds a Royal Warrant from Her Majesty the Queen as purveyors of Scottish specialities.

Joseph Nicol Walker is a Scottish former professional footballer, who played as a goalkeeper for several clubs in Scotland and England. Walker was selected for many Scotland squads during the 1990s, earning two international caps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berger Cookies</span> German-American cookie

Berger Cookies are a handmade cookie made and marketed by DeBaufre Bakeries of Baltimore, Maryland. The cookies are widely known for their thick, chocolate frosting on an imperfectly-shaped shortbread cookie. Not unlike a black and white cookie, the Berger Cookie is frosted on its flat bottom, giving the final cookie an overall rounded shape. Each weighs 1.25 ounces, with the cake-like under-cookie weighing a quarter of an ounce, and the chocolate/fudge frosting weighing an ounce. DeBaufre distributes packaged Berger Cookies via a delivery network around Baltimore and markets the cookies worldwide via internet sales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burry's</span> A Food Manufacturer Company in the US

Burry's is a food manufacturer, founded as Burry's Biscuit Corporation by George W. Burry in 1888 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, as a division of the Quaker Oats Company. The company was one of the manufacturers of Girl Scout cookies from 1936 until 1989.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Butter cookie</span> Biscuit originating in Denmark

Butter cookies, also known as Danish biscuits, are cookies originating in Denmark consisting of butter, flour, and sugar. They are similar to shortbread cookies.

<i>Nankhatai</i>

Nankhatai are shortbread biscuits originating from the Indian subcontinent, popular in Northern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Macpherson Grant</span> Nineteenth-century Scottish philanthropist

Margaret Macpherson Grant was a Scottish heiress and philanthropist. Born in Aberlour parish to a local surgeon, she was educated in Hampshire, and was left an only child when her elder brother died in India in 1852. Two years later, she inherited a large fortune from her uncle, Alexander Grant, an Aberlour-born planter and merchant who had become rich in Jamaica.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aberlour House (building)</span> House in Scotland, UK

Aberlour House is a country house near Aberlour in Moray, Scotland. It was built in 1838 by William Robertson for Alexander Grant, planter and merchant from Aberlour, after his return to the UK. His niece, Margaret Macpherson Grant, lived in it after Grant died, and it was later home to John Ritchie Findlay of The Scotsman newspaper and his descendants. It was requisitioned for military use during the Second World War, and after the war was sold for use as a preparatory school for Gordonstoun. The school was later moved into Gordonstoun's estate, and the building was sold to Walkers Shortbread, who restored and renovated it, and now use it as their head office. It has been designated a Category A listed building.

References

  1. "About us". Archived from the original on 6 January 2014. Retrieved 6 January 2014.
  2. "Walkers Shortbread". Biscuit people. 11 January 2017. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
  3. "Business | The Scotsman". www.scotsman.com.
  4. "History of Walkers Shortbread". www.englishteastore.com. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
  5. "All you need to know about Walkers Shortbread". The Scotsman. Retrieved 18 October 2021.
  6. McCrea, Diane (2007). The handbook of organic and fair trade food marketing. Oxford: Blackwell Pub. pp. 176–180. ISBN   9780470996089.
  7. "Walkers Shortbread closing village bakery" - PoliticalGateway.com 13 June 2006
  8. "WalkersShortbread.com - History".
  9. Bindrim, Kira (2 July 2007). "Walkers Shortbread names new CEO". newyorkbusiness.com. Crain Communications, Inc. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 8 June 2015.
  10. "Her Majesty The Queen Grants Royal Warrant To Walkers For Shortbread". www.walkersshortbread.com. Retrieved 26 March 2019.
  11. UK, Oscar Williams-Grut, Business Insider. "The butter market is going crazy". Business Insider. Retrieved 26 March 2019.
  12. "Shortbread firm hit by butter price surge". 18 July 2018. Retrieved 26 March 2019.
  13. Symon, Ken (7 October 2020). "Walker's Shortbread returns furlough payments as it reports increased turnover and marginally reduced profits". businessInsider. Insider Publications Ltd. Retrieved 3 September 2021.