Company History

The Hunt's story starts more than 60 years ago but it was in 1948 that the foundations of Hunt's Foodservice were created when Michael Hunt inherited his family's dairy and ice cream business.

With absolute focus on ice cream manufacturing, Michael was able to start a van sales operation in the 1950s. This presented him with the opportunity to sell frozen foods, which were just beginning to emerge in the UK.

The forward thinking nature of the business meant that the company grew rapidly based upon its excellent reputation throughout the West Country. Things really started to change when the company moved into a 100,000 cu. ft. cold store in 1969.

Growth continued and by 1974 the decision was made to focus exclusively on frozen foods and the dairy side of the business was sold. A new era had dawned for Hunt's, which became Hunt's Frozen Foods (Sherborne) Ltd, based on the current site in Sherborne and supported by a new 1.2 million cu. ft. cold store and head office building. In 1986, an additional 300,000 cu. ft. of cold store was added to further extend the company’s capabilities and to meet constantly increasing demand.

It was this increasing demand that lead to the acquisition of a 2,360-pallet, purpose built cold store in nearby Stalbridge in 1997 and the start of Hunt's Foodservice’s ability to provide public cold storage facilities supported by blast freezing capability based at Sherborne HQ.

The business had grown beyond recognition from it's original base and prudent financial management provided the opportunity to strategically acquire other key businesses, including Webb's Frozen Foods at Winchester, Snow's Frozen Foods and Price's Frozen Foods in Bristol and R.G. Frozen Foods in Ferndown. These particular acquisitions gave the company a much improved distribution base and a further opportunity to acquire additional frozen food companies in the South West.

As Hunt's Frozen Foods entered the new millennium, the acquisition of Country Fresh, a catering butcher and frozen food supplier based upon the Isle of Wight, and Sunnyside Distribution, in Weston-Super-Mare, further extended the supply network and prompted a change of name to the company now known as Hunt's Foodservice Ltd., which more accurately reflected the changing product portfolio.

An internal restructuring was completed in September 2008 to operate the company with two distinct divisions focused exclusively on very different demands of the food service market and the retail arena. This organisational change has been underpinned by an unprecedented investment in the provision of expertise to the food service sector at a time when many companies are cutting back on such resource, demonstrating total commitment to placing the customer first in all of our thinking.