Cerebos
Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | Procssed Foods |
Founder | Mawson & Swan |
Headquarters | |
Area served | Worldwide |
Products |
|
Parent | Kraft Heinz |
Website | www |
Cerebos is a brand of salt and, more recently, of other flavourings and nutritional supplements. The company is now owned by a Japanese company, Suntory K.K. The product was developed by George Weddell, a Scottish chemist working at the British company Mawson & Swan, and sold under the Cerebos brand by a new partnership, Mawson, Swan & Weddell.[1]
The company Cerebos Ltd was later registered in 1894.[1] At the time of its introduction, salt was sold in large blocks from which the user would scrape what they needed. Free-running salt was a novelty because, left for any length of time, pure sodium chloride crystals would absorb sufficient moisture from the air to cause them to stick together, a phenomenon called caking. Its slogan was "See How It Runs", because the salt contained anti-caking agents.[2] The slogan was echoed in the product branding of a small boy chasing a chicken.[3]
It is sold in Western Europe (including France where it is spelt Cérébos), Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The Australian and New Zealand Food and Beverage operations are part of Cerebos Pacific (Singapore), which in turn is part of Suntory Holdings Limited (Japan) established in 2009, and includes the well known local brands:
- Greggs (NZ)
- Robert Harris (NZ)
- Bisto (NZ)
- Raro (NZ)
- atomic (NZ)
- Whitlock's (NZ)
- L'affare (NZ)
- Bruno Rossi (NZ)
- Gravox (Australia)
- Fountain (Australia)
- Toby Estate (Australia)
- Saxa (Australia)
- Foster Clark's (Australia)
- Mocopan (Australia)
- Asian Home Gourmet (Australia)
Branding
A boy chasing a chicken and pouring salt over it is an icon that has become synonymous with the brand.[3][4]
The Cerebos salt company invented 'Bisto' gravy powder product (a mixture of salt, flavourings and colourings), at its salt factory in Middlewich, Cheshire in the United Kingdom. It was acquired by RHM in 1968, which later sold its stake in Cerebos Pacific to Suntory in 1990.[1]
References
- ^ a b c Farrell, Thomas (2015-02-05). "Worth its salt: Cerebos". Let's Look Again. Retrieved 2017-09-30.
- ^ Behm, Michael (19 September 2010). "Cerebos Ltd". A Blog for the Commercial Overprint Society of Great Britain (COSGB). Retrieved 2017-09-30.
- ^ a b http://www.salines.com/maj/phototheque/photos/bnd_membres/cerebos.jpg Archived October 29, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ https://www.flickr.com/photos/totallymystified/23803182164
External links
- Cerebos on esco
- http://www.cerebos.co.za/
- http://www.cerebos.com/Our-Business/Cerebos-Companies
- http://www.cerebos.com.au/Business/About.aspx
- Documents and clippings about Cerebos in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW