Warburtons

Thomas Warburton and his wife Ellen first opened their grocery shop in 1870, but it wasn't until 1876 during a slump in the grocery market when Ellen Warburton started baking bread. Ellen's first batch of four loaves of bread and six cakes sold out in under an hour. Within two weeks the tiny shop in Bolton was renamed 'Warburtons the Bakers' and continued to go from strength-to-strength over the next 143 years. 

All those years on and Warburtons is still a private family-owned business, actively managed by the fifth generation of Warburtons Jonathan, Ross and Brett. It is the largest family-owned bakery business in the country, and employs around 4,500 people across 11 bakeries and 15 depots across the UK. Now recognised as Britain's favourite bakery brand, Warburtons has doubled in size in the last decade alone to become a £500 million-a-year business. This means that more than a quarter of all bakery products consumed in the UK is produced by Warburtons.

This is our first entry into the Lord Mayors parade – the new Lord Mayor’s ward is Bread Street so it felt very fitting to take part in something so iconic. When we were deciding what to do, we wanted, as a family owned British business and to have some fun – so we are celebrating Britain’s love of the Great British Crumpet! 

We will have lots of dancing and music – there will be people dancing beside the vehicle dressed as crumpets and Warbies people in bright clothing dancing too. We will also have a fantastic brass band/trumpeters performing and dancing!