Building on a pioneering and visionary history

The foundations of Vestey Holdings date back to the 1890s when brothers William and Edmund Vestey established the Union Cold Storage Company in Liverpool, among the first to exploit the potential of refrigeration, supplying quality affordable meat, poultry, eggs and fish to the growing UK population.

In the early 20th century, the business expanded into China with a large egg processing enterprise, and used a fleet of Blue Star Line refrigerated vessels to supply the bakery trades in the UK, USA, Europe and South Africa for over fifty years.

In 1911 the Vestey brothers expanded into meat production, processing and distribution, with land and meatworks in Venezuela, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand and Argentina, plus market stalls and butcher shops including around 3,000 Dewhurst outlets by 1923. By 2000 the business had been broken up into stand-alone farming, cold storage, and food import and distribution companies.