Baxters of Fochabers: From a Village Grocer to a Global Soup Maker

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

Most of what is known about Baxters' early history comes from the company itself, through its own timeline and the stories it has told journalists and authors for decades. Carol Foreman's chapter in Made in Scotland (2nd edn, 2010) states that its information and illustrations came "courtesy of Baxters". That does not make the stories untrue, but it means the anecdotes, such as the Duke and William Baxter pegging out the factory site after church, cannot be checked independently. Company registration details reported by Grace's Guide, obituaries in the Scottish press and recent financial reporting give firmer ground for the later history. Some sources disagree on dates, for example whether the factory was planned in 1914 or built in 1916, and whether the soup range sold a million cans in its first year or its third.

Gordon Castle and the Duke

established George Baxter worked as a gardener on the Gordon Castle estate at Fochabers. Gordon Castle, on the lower Spey, was the seat of the Dukes of Gordon until the last duke died in 1836; it then passed to the Dukes of Richmond, who took the name Gordon-Lennox. The sixth Duke of Richmond was created Duke of Gordon in 1876, after which the title "Duke of Richmond and Gordon" applies. Baxters' own history describes George as a gardener for "the Duke of Richmond and Gordon", and Carol Foreman calls him the Duke of Gordon's gardener; both are convenient shorthand for the ducal family who owned the castle.

shared Foreman says George was one of fifty or so gardeners on the estate, and that he left with the Duke's blessing. She also says the £100 came from an uncle; the company says from family. The estate mattered in two ways. It gave the business its first wealthy customers, and in 1916 it supplied the land for the factory.

The village shop

established George Baxter, then about 25, opened a small grocery shop in Fochabers in 1868. His wife Margaret made jams and jellies from local fruit and sold them in the shop. The company says her preserves reached the table at Gordon Castle.

shared Foreman gives more detail, drawn from the company. The shop was in Spey Street. Margaret's fruit came largely from the castle grounds. Customers included guests at the castle and members of shooting and fishing parties, who took the jams home and then wrote for more. George delivered a daily order to the castle, travelled to London and Europe for cheeses, pâtés and wines, and was also a whisky wholesaler, bottling local malt and selling it as Baxter's Pure Malt Scotch Whisky. None of this is independently documented, but it fits the trade of a well-placed village grocer serving a ducal household and the sporting estates of Speyside.

established The original shop survives. It was taken down and rebuilt inside the company's Highland Village visitor centre at Fochabers, where it was shown as the Old Museum Shop with its mahogany counter and glass jars.

William and Ethel

shared George and Margaret's son William Alexander Baxter left school at 13 to work in the shop. Foreman says that by 18 he was accompanying his father on buying trips, and that as a salesman he would take his bicycle by train to Wick and cycle back to Fochabers, handing out samples and taking orders. The company's own timeline says William travelled by bicycle and train to sell the jams across Scotland.

established William's wife Ethel, recorded in the company's incorporation papers as Etheldreda, was the driving force of the next stage. According to Foreman, she decided in 1914 that jam sales were strong enough for the couple to leave the shop to William's brother George and become jam makers. The company dates the factory to 1916, when William bought land from the Duke beside the Spey, east of the village and across the river, and the couple built a factory there. The firm says it stood "exactly 120 yards from the River Spey".

traditional Foreman tells how the Duke and William marked out the site with wooden pegs and string after church one Sunday, and how the first jam was bottled on New Year's morning 1916. These are family stories. The factory has been extended many times but remains on the same site.

shared In the 1920s William took the products to London. With letters of introduction from the Duke, Foreman says, he won orders from Harrods, Fortnum & Mason and the Army & Navy Stores, and even from Buckingham Palace. She records the buyer at Fortnum & Mason saying he could not understand a word of William's sales pitch, and placing an order anyway. The company's timeline also names Harrods and Fortnum & Mason.

Canning, beetroot and Royal Game Soup

established In 1923 Ethel hired a canning machine to can local fruit in syrup. The company says this made Baxters one of the first Scottish firms to do so. In the 1920s William bought half a ton of beetroot, which Ethel cooked, sliced by hand and bottled in vinegar; beetroot has been a Baxters line ever since, and by the 1970s the firm called itself the UK's leading beetroot producer.

established In 1929 Ethel created Royal Game Soup, made with venison from Upper Speyside and other game. It became the firm's best-known product and is still sold. The name "Royal" predates the royal warrants by a quarter of a century and was a description, not an endorsement.

established The Second World War nearly ended the business. The firm survived mainly by making jam for the armed forces. Foreman, quoting company figures, says that when William and Ethel's sons Gordon and Ian came back from the war, the workforce was down to ten factory workers and one clerk, that turnover in 1946 was £40,000, and that the whole capital of the business was £4,000. Grace's Guide records that W. A. Baxter and Sons Ltd was incorporated as a private company in 1945 with capital of £4,000, taking over the fruit and beetroot preserving and meat products business of William and Etheldreda Baxter. (Foreman's text names the brothers' parents as "William and Margaret"; their mother was Ethel.)

Gordon, Ian and the post-war rebuilding

shared Gordon Baxter took charge of sales, covering Scotland himself as his father had done; Ian ran production. Materials were rationed, and Foreman says the brothers had to beg for allocations of cans from the Metal Box Company and search for used jam jars. Gordon was later appointed OBE in 1968 for services to British exports, and was the third person given the Freedom of Moray, in 2008. He handed control to his daughter Audrey in 1992 and died in 2013, aged 95.

shared Foreman says that while selling in America in the 1950s, Gordon learned that a firm had to find out what customers wanted, make it and then advertise it, rather than try to sell what it already made. The lesson is a staple of the family story.

Ena Baxter and the soups

established Ena Baxter was born on 12 August 1924 at Drumblair House, in the parish of Forgue in Aberdeenshire, and grew up in Huntly. She studied at Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen and painted all her life. She took a teaching post in Fochabers, where she met Gordon Baxter, and they married in 1952. She joined the business that year.

shared Foreman tells how Ena found a recipe for Louisiana chicken gumbo in the American magazine Gourmet, could not get okra in Fochabers, and used green beans from her garden instead. Gordon wanted to can it at once; Ena insisted on perfecting it. The story is a family one.

established In 1953, according to Foreman, Gordon and Ena launched a range of Scottish soups despite warnings that a small Highland firm could not compete with the big soup makers. The company credits Ena with soups including Cock-a-Leekie, Scotch Broth and Chicken Broth. Foreman says the range sold a million cans by its third year; the Press and Journal's biography of Ena says one million tins in the first year. Later lines included lobster bisque, pheasant consommé and cream of smoked trout, alongside sauces, chutneys and preserves made to her recipes.

established Ena tested new products in her own kitchen before they went to the factory's test kitchen, and the company built its advertising around her. Advertisements showed her chopping and stirring for her family, with the message that what was good enough for the Baxters was good enough for customers. In the 1970s she made many television appearances in Britain and abroad, which the company credits with reviving interest in traditional Scottish cooking. The trade weekly The Grocer, in its obituary, credited her with taking cock-a-leekie and Scotch broth to national and international audiences.

established Ena Baxter died on 15 January 2015, aged 90.

Royal warrants and the world stage

established In 1955 Baxters received royal warrants of appointment as manufacturers of Scottish food specialities from Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and King Gustav VI Adolf of Sweden. Warrants are personal to the grantor, so the 1955 grants say nothing about the firm's warrants today.

shared In the 1960s Gordon and Ena developed a "Best of Scotland" promotion for department stores in Europe, North America, South Africa, Japan and Australia. Foreman describes "Baxter Banquets" and haggis parties abroad, including a charity dinner in Chicago for 1,250 people, with royal game soup, haggis, pheasant and raspberries, to raise money for a Scots old people's home. In 1962, the company says, it became the first UK firm to put twist-top caps on 12 oz preserve jars.

shared Foreman reports, from company sources, that Baxters had received around 182 takeover approaches by 2010 and turned them all down.

The fourth generation

established Audrey Baxter became managing director in 1992 and developed new products with her brother Andrew. The firm marked 125 years in 1993 with a visit from the Prince of Wales. In 2001 it made its first acquisition, Garner Foods, a maker of pickles, and opened a chilled soup factory at Grimsby. It bought CCL Foods of Essex, a maker of dressings and sauces, in 2003, and Soup-Experts of Canada in 2004, its first overseas purchase. That year Norman Soutar became group managing director, the first from outside the family; he left in 2006 and Audrey Baxter resumed the post.

established The company was renamed Baxters Food Group Ltd in 2006. Pickling moved to Wolsztyn in Poland in 2006 and the Pershore factory closed in 2007. In 2008 Baxters sold its Grimsby chilled soup plant to Northern Foods and began buying businesses in Australia. Later purchases included the Fray Bentos canned meat brand in 2011, Manor Vinegar in 2012, Wornick Foods, a United States maker of military rations, in 2014, and Truitt Bros, a United States contract food manufacturer, in 2020. The Canadian businesses were sold in 2018.

established In January 2018 the headquarters moved to Edinburgh. Audrey Baxter described Fochabers as the company's "spiritual home". The Highland Village visitor centre at Fochabers, which Foreman said drew more than 200,000 visitors a year, closed temporarily on 24 December 2020 and permanently in February 2021.

established Baxters is still a private company controlled by the Baxter family. In the year to 29 March 2025 its revenue rose 3 per cent to £387.7 million and its underlying operating profit to £22.3 million, though it made a pre-tax loss after heavy financing costs. Its United States subsidiary Wornick Foods, which makes military and emergency rations, contributed strongly to that year's profit rise. Audrey Baxter is executive chairman.

• George Baxter started the business with a £100 loan from his family.
• Royal Game Soup was created in 1929, a quarter of a century before the firm's first royal warrants.
• In 1955 Baxters received warrants from the Queen, the Queen Mother and the King of Sweden.
• The original 1868 shop was moved and rebuilt inside the Highland Village at Fochabers.
• Ena Baxter trained at Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen.
• According to Foreman, William Baxter took his bicycle by train to Wick and cycled home taking orders.
• Baxters now owns a US company that makes military field rations.
• Baxters says it was the first UK firm to use twist-top caps on 12 oz jam jars, in 1962.

• Disputed: the jam factory dates from 1914. Foreman says Ethel decided on jam-making in 1914; the company dates the land purchase and factory to 1916.
• Disputed: the soup range sold a million cans in its first year. Foreman says by the third year; the Press and Journal says the first.
• Disputed: George Baxter was the Duke of Gordon's gardener. In 1868 Gordon Castle belonged to the Duke of Richmond, who was made Duke of Gordon in 1876.
• Myth: "Royal Game Soup" was named for a royal warrant. The soup dates from 1929; the warrants came in 1955.
• Disputed: Baxters turned down 182 takeover bids. The figure comes from the company, via Foreman, and cannot be checked.
• Myth: Baxters is still run from Fochabers. Headquarters moved to Edinburgh in 2018, though Fochabers remains the founding site.