Firm’s century as food of gods ..and the nation
CUSTARD giant Ambrosia has marked its 100th anniversary with an exhibition showcasing the cream of its history.
Fascinating photographs reveal how it went from a humble war-effort enterprise employing fewer than a dozen people handling 50 gallons of horse-drawn milk to a £100million brand.
The Devon firm is famed now for tinned rice pudding and custard but when it was founded in 1917 its original aim was to produce dried milk.
The revolutionary product fuelled Tommies in the trenches and fed undernourished infants. During the Second World War, Ambrosia rice in Red Cross parcels helped keep hundreds of British prisoners of war alive.
The firm still stands on the same site in the village of Lifton, close to the border with Cornwall, but is now a high-tech facility employing 320 staff and supporting hundreds of dairy farms.
Every year it churns through 118 million pints of milk – enough to fill 21 Olympic swimming pools – and over 600,000 portions of its custard and rice pud are eaten in the UK each day.
The firm started from a meeting between businessman Alfred Morris and an American who had patented a milk-drying machine.
Morris won a Government contract and named his product Ambrosia, which in ancient Greek myths was the food of the gods.
The firm later changed hands several times and has been owned by Premier Foods since 2003. Lifton historian Marion Kneebone said: “It’s a strong brand that has managed to keep going for a century through turbulent times.”