Weetabix - 12 Pack

Australian by birth, Northamptonshire by trade

Here is one for the breakfast table. Weetabix was invented in Australia in the 1920s by Bennison Osborne. In 1930 Osborne and his New Zealand partner Malcolm Macfarlane sold the Australian and New Zealand rights for 'Weet-Bix' to Sanitarium Health Food Company, a separate company from the British maker. Then, on 13 August 1932, Weetabix Limited was founded, with its home in Burton Latimer. So if an Australian at work ever tells you it is theirs, you can both be a little bit right.

Owners change, the bowl does not

Weetabix had been under Chinese ownership by the Shanghai-based group Bright Food. In April 2017 the acquisition by Post Holdings was announced, valued at £1.4 billion, and Post Holdings is the parent company today. In 2012, marking its 80th birthday, Weetabix announced a £20 million upgrade of its Burton Latimer, Corby, Ashton-under-Lyne, Toronto and Boston factories. Big numbers. Nobody at your kitchen table cared. They cared whether there was any milk left.

The rest of the cupboard

Weetabix Limited also produces Alpen, Ready Brek, Weetos, Crunchy Bran and Puffins, which covers a fair chunk of a British childhood's breakfasts in one go. Ready Brek on a cold school morning. Weetos when someone else was doing the shopping. Weetabix Food Co. is the second largest cereal brand in the United Kingdom, behind Kellogg's, which suits a box that never needed to shout. It just sat in the cupboard, and somehow there were always two left.