Cavenham Confectionery

About Cavenham Confectionery

Cavenham Confectionery was the sweet-making company that Cavenham Foods formed about 1967, at Virginia Street in Southport, to hold its Hollands, Carsons and Parkinsons brands, which put J A & P Holland, the first maker of Chewits, under it.^[1] It also made Famous Names liqueur chocolates and, from 1968, Elizabeth Shaw mint chocolates at Carsons' Greenbank factory in Bristol.^[2] The legal entity is company 00097873, incorporated on 6 May 1908, which was renamed Famous Names Limited in 1981, Elizabeth Shaw Limited in 1988 and Armoury Square Limited in October 2000.^[3] It was wound up voluntarily in 2006, dissolved in October 2007 and restored to the register by court order in June 2015.^[4]

In 1967 it was amalgamated with the confectionery arm of the French group Source Perrier, bringing in Menier, Lindt, Rozan and Caramels d'Isigny.^[1] Wikipedia's account of the parent adds that the Perrier partnership was dissolved in the autumn of 1969, when Cavenham Confectionery was sold for 1.2 million pounds to Conwood SA, a Swiss company owned half by Cavenham Foods and half by the American Conwood Corporation, and that Cavenham bought Conwood SA outright in 1970, which returned the confectionery business to its full control.^[5] Its management bought the company out in 1981 and renamed it Famous Names, after its brand of liqueur chocolates; the Imperial Group acquired it in 1985 and came under Hanson Trust in 1986.^[1] Wikipedia records that its management bought it again in 1988, after Hanson divested it, renaming it Elizabeth Shaw, and that it was sold in 1990 to the Finnish confectionery business Leaf.^[2] The company's own history dates Leaf UK's ownership from 1991 to March 2000, when a management buy-out led by the managing director Malachy McReynolds took the Elizabeth Shaw business over; Nói Síríus of Iceland acquired it in 2006 and Imagine Capital of Oslo in 2009.^[6] Colian Holding of Poland bought Elizabeth Shaw in 2016, and the Greenbank factory closed in 2006.^[2] The Elizabeth Shaw Limited of today is a different company, 03737259, incorporated in 1999 as Quayshelfco 704, named Elizabeth Shaw Limited from 2001 to 2021 and now Colian UK Limited.^[7]