Thorntons
Encyclopedia
Thorntons is a UK chocolate
company established by Joseph William Thornton
in 1911. Thorntons today is a £180 million turnover company with nearly 400 shops and cafes and around 200 franchises
together with internet, mail order
and commercial services. Since the takeover of Cadburys by US company Kraft
, Thorntons is now the largest, independent chocolate and confectionery company in the United Kingdom. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange
and is a constituent of the FTSE Fledgling Index
.
account for almost £80 million of Thornton's sales and are often cited as two of the favourites among the Thornton product line.
The following is a consolidation of the Thornton business story contained in the book written by Peter Thornton
The Thornton family lived in Leeds for many years having various occupations from shopkeeper to innkeeper until eventually Joseph Thornton, born 1832, moved south to become a railway shopkeeper in Sheffield. He married in 1868 and two years later Joseph William Thornton was born.
Joseph grew up to become a commercial traveller with the Don Confectionery Company and opened his first Thorntons Chocolate Kabin shop in October 1911 on the corner of Norfolk Street and Howard Street in Sheffield. At that time the family was living in rented property in the nearby Derbyshire village of Hathersage.
It was Joseph William’s intention to offer the nicest sweet shop in Sheffield. The walls inside the shop were covered in fashionable cream anaglypta
wallpaper. There was a beautifully shaped glass case from which Kunzle cakes were served individually with tongs. Trays of Mackintosh's Toffee Deluxe were broken into pieces by assistants using toffee hammers and pincers and put into waxed bags on the brass weighing scales. Behind the counter there were mirrors from floor to ceiling, giving the shop a classy air and making it seem much bigger than it actually was, with glass shelves for the knock-stoppered jars of caramels and boiled sweets. Other now-unfamiliar products included Cachous, Violet Cachous, Sweet-Lips, Phul-Nanas and the descriptively-named Curiously Strong Mints.
Joseph couldn’t afford to give up his job at the Don Confectionery Company at the time and he prudently retained his job as a commercial traveller until 1913 to guarantee himself an income. Instead he decided to take his son Norman out of Abbeydale Secondary School when still only 14 to become manager of the shop when it opened. The other members of staff were two young ladies “of a very superior type” who doubtless gave the shop the necessary atmosphere of quality that Joseph sought. There must have been great relief in the family when the shop opened successfully; taking £20 a week, “quite a lot of money….in those days”. It was successful enough to persuade Joseph in 1913 finally to leave his job and risk opening another shop.'
The Moor would be the next best place because the rents would be lower and there were considerably more passers-by. It was here in the basement that Joseph began some simple manufacturing of his own products, he would demonstrate to Norman how to make simple boiled sweets such as Fish Mixtures and Mint Rock. In a back room on the ground floor of the shop there was sufficient space to start manufacturing chocolates.
The family left the rented house in Hathersage and moved into rooms above the shop, thus efficiently combining retailing, manufacture and accommodation under one roof. Norman’s youngest brother Stanley obtained a scholarship to Sheffield University to study Chemistry and Physics but because the family was so short of money he was under pressure to relinquish his university place and join his brother Norman in the business. Helpfully, the University allowed him to attend on some evenings and on Saturday mornings to study food technology and this later became a very valuable asset to the business.
Joseph William became ill in 1917 and eventually died in 1919. Norman, just 21 years old, took over the business. Norman worked very hard during the war trying to consolidate trade in the two shops. In 1921 Stanley and Norman formed a limited company called J.W. Thornton Ltd with themselves as the two shareholders. Here were two good partners working together, establishing a secure prospect for the future growth of the family business.
In 1923 economic conditions started to improve and the Thornton brothers decided to open two more shops. The first of these was on London Road just where it joined the end of The Moor, and the second was at nearby 194 Rockingham Street, both being very busy locations. This doubling of outlets meant a doubling of stock for which the new London Road shop had production space.
They had not been at London Road very long when they were told that the property had been put up for sale and they would lose their tenancy unless they could purchase it themselves. This included six shops and four houses. The asking price was £5,000 but the brothers took a chance and were offered what seems like a very good business deal. They paid £250 there and then with an agreement to pay a further £250 in March each subsequent year. This then put great pressure on the business to increase earnings in the early part of the year, writing people’s names on Easter eggs doesn’t seem to have been a particularly original idea but it did prove to be a very successful one right from the start, increasing sales considerably.
In 1924 Thorntons were still selling Mackintosh's Deluxe Toffee but with only modest sales. The two brothers felt they could make something better than this and at a greater profit. Stanley started to experiment, first at home in the kitchen and then in the basement of the shop on The Moor, using his university experience to produce a home-made toffee that everybody seemed to like. They sold it for the relatively high price of 6d (2½p) a quarter - a quarter pound being roughly the equivalent of 114g. It became so popular that it soon made up half of the total sales of the business and remained the company’s pre-eminent product for the next 50 years. It was sold at that same price for 15 years, indicating the negligible inflation in the national economy until the outbreak of the Second World War. This product was the engine that drove the business for many years, and in many people’s minds the words ‘Thorntons’ and ‘toffee’ became synonymous.
Sales rocketed, even during this difficult period of the 1920s, and an even better Special Toffee was introduced along with an increasing variety of chocolates. Vigorous promotions, such as the ‘Saturday Specials’, a precursor to the ‘Buy One Get One Free’ offers of today, ensured that customers were reminded of the excellence of the brand. A further two shops opened in 1926, the year of the General Strike, one in neighbouring Rotherham and the other on Union Street. The Rotherham shop was the first outside of Sheffield and was a great success but the one on Union Street was less so and became the company’s first shop to be considered a failure. It closed within a year.
The brothers now had to split their responsibilities: Norman managed the shops and did all the administration, Stanley oversaw all the manufacturing. They still took important decisions together following what were described by Stanley as “heated but friendly arguments”. As it was then a buyer’s market for shops they could always get short leases with a three-year break clause. A successful format had been established and in 1928 a new shop was opened in Castle Street followed in 1930 by shops in Leopold Street and in Spital Hill, all in Sheffield. The latter soon closed, but a very successful shop appeared in 1931 in the heart of the city at Fitzalan Square.
By the early 1930s Thorntons were aware that their successful formula could be expanded over the North of England and maybe even to Scotland. They remained unsure of the South, believing that the consumption of confectionery was linked to average ambient temperature. With true Northern pride they saw their products as part of the culture of the region and were not convinced that effete Southerners would ever want to buy a product such as Thorntons Special Toffee from Sheffield! The Scots, on the other hand, were known to have a very sweet tooth and perhaps would buy even more than the Sassenachs! It goes without saying that their assumptions about Southerners proved to be completely unfounded.
Mancunians got their first taste of Thorntons’ products in 1932 with a shop on Oxford Street, only the second branch to open outside Sheffield. It was followed by a shop at 37a Boar Lane in Leeds, appropriately the area in which the family had lived for centuries. The Thorntons had come home!
The brothers decided in 1934 on a purpose-built factory instead of relying on rented premises. They chose Archer Road, surrounded by new suburban estates designed to re-house council tenants from the slum clearance programmes after the Great War. This site was about four miles (6 km) south of the city centre with cleaner air and closer to the countryside. The factory was a modest 2000 sq ft (185.8 m²). on each floor, two years later they built a similar-sized extension.
War was declared in September 1939. Suddenly the steel works in Sheffield were busy again. This led to a boost in other regional businesses, including Thorntons, although this was short-lived, offset by other negative factors, chiefly the shortage of raw materials, particularly cane sugar which of course always had to be imported. Confectionery was quickly rationed to a mere two ounces a week. Staffing in the retail shops was reduced as individuals, male and female, left for military service.
The company had opened eight new shops in the year before the start of hostilities making a total of 35 shops in 18 towns, The war put paid to any further expansion for at least ten years. Indeed, some shops were actually lost, either through expired leases or air-raids. There were at least 30 instances of retail premises suffering war damage. The night of the 1 and 2 June 1940 was just such an occasion when three of Thornton’s shops in Manchester were heavily bombed and reduced to rubble. The branch on Mosley Street in the heart of the city was a particular loss as the brothers were extremely proud of this very successful large branch with its five display windows.
Later that year in Sheffield heavy bombing took place on the night of the 12 and 13 December, destroying much of The Moor including the shop where the family had once lived and the shops on London Road. The Thorntons factory on Archer Road was only superficially damaged but gas, electricity and other services were lost for seven weeks. With some remarkable forethought, the brothers had anticipated such a contingency and had recently acquired a small bankrupt factory in Lancashire to transfer production there if necessary.
After the war it was time to look forward and consider further expansion. An application for a building licence to extend the Sheffield factory on its quarry site was refused because of the very great shortage of building materials and skilled labour. One of the brothers saw an advertisement in a local paper offering a factory in a place called Belper in Derbyshire about 35 miles (56.3 km) to the south. They successfully acquired the building in 1948 for £8,400 but signally failed to notice that Belper had the lowest rate of unemployment in the country.
Norman had three sons, Tony born in 1927, Peter in 1933 and John in 1943. Stanley had one son, Michael born in 1936. These young men right from the start were set up to shoulder the responsibility of keeping Thornton’s at the forefront of the confectionery business. Tony Thornton joined the business in 1948 and initially worked at the factory in Belper, after about 5 years he began to take over retail management from his father, Norman. Peter joined in 1953 working also at the Belper factory in the vacations from the London Borough Polytechnic where he was studying Chocolate and Sugar Confectionery. He finished the course in 1954 and then joined the business full time.
By this time the company had established strong differential advantages over competitors, they were; rigid rules for the products and for running the retail business which were always followed at each new retail location, the Special Toffee product, writing names on Easter Eggs and a fourth advantage was about to be created, this was the Continental Chocolates range.
In early 1954, Walter Willen, a young Swiss confectioner, came to work for Thorntons. He came originally just to learn English, possibly to stay for a year and then go home. Fortunately for Thorntons he remained until his retirement. Walter set to creating a new range of handmade confectionery called Swiss Assortment. Such beautiful pieces, round spiky milk and plain chocolates, slices with layers of nut paste, pineapple fourée and everything else! So delicious! Eventually the name changed to the Continental Assortment because the Swiss Embassy complained. Stanley Thornton worked closely with Walter during this period so that the recipes could be adapted more to the English taste.
In 1956 Beryl Willis 'Jean' became manager of one of the Thorntons factories. She died at the age of 86 in February 1926 - 2011
In July 1956 Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal. The Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden, considered invading Suez, a concept that aroused international consternation and Peter was recalled into the army to await the expected invasion. He was finally released after nine boring months in the Reserve Army in December 1956 having seen nothing more than Aldershot.
In January 1957 Peter became manager of the Chocolate Department in Sheffield and Michael Thornton joined the business in the same year. By this time also Tony had started to take over responsibility for retail management from Norman and became fully responsible by 1960 as Retail Director. In 1962 Peter became Production Director and Michael assumed responsibility for Company Secretarial duties, Administration and Finance.
From then on great strides forward were taken by the new young family management team. Tony improved the shop designs, display and management generally whilst at the same time rapidly expanding the chain. Peter greatly improved productivity, mechanisation, quality management, production capacity and personnel management systems. Particularly the ‘Factory Council’ unanimous voting representative system was introduced, based on the Glacier Metal system. The Council agreed Terms of Employment and wage rate banding, the result of this and many other measures was outstanding industrial relations. Michael reviewed and refined the administration and financial control systems.
By 1967 the business had nearly 90 shops making a profit of almost £250,000 on a turnover of over £1.7 million. (That would translate in today’s finances to a profit of almost £3 million).
The capacity of the Belper factory became a limitation on further expansion but it was very fortunate that Thorntons were able to purchase adjacent land and property to continue the expansion with new buildings.
John Thornton joined the business in 1967; he obtained an engineering degree at Cambridge and then worked for a year in Germany at a confectionery machinery manufacturing company for his practical experience in order to complete his studies.
In 1968 Norman Thornton finally gave up his Chairmanship of the company and Tony and Stanley became Joint Managing Directors. The company began manufacturing for Marks and Spencer under their trading name and started the franchising system which made retailing in small towns possible.
In 1978 a management re-organisation took place when Peter moved to retail management and John took over as Production Director, this was changed again after another year when John became Joint Managing Director in charge of Operations and Peter, Joint Managing Director responsible for Sales and Marketing. Peter then worked together with Professor Peter Doyle of Bradford and later Warwick University to carry out a retail re-positioning exercise which was eventually very successful the company making a net profit of 11.75% in 1981 equivalent to £6.23 million in current terms.
Thorntons continued to be a seasonal business however but the peak seasons were very large; the year started with Valentine's Day, was followed by Mother’s Day, Easter remained a peak period for the business and then trading eased throughout the summer until October when the charge was full-tilt towards Christmas. At Christmas the shops were packed solid right through to the last minute. There’d be queues out to the pavements on Fridays and Saturdays. The stores at the backs of the shops would be stacked so high it was almost impossible to move. It was a joy to visit at this time of year, assuming you could actually get inside! No one minded the crush as the season seemed to bring out a jovial spirit in everyone.
Tony and Peter Thornton now started to investigate the opportunity to purchase a business in the USA as a diversification, this entailed many visits across the Atlantic taking Peter away from his role as Joint MD for retailing. John asked the Board to appoint him as sole MD in view of this. It was agreed and Peter then became Group Development Director in 1981.
In October 1982 Thorntons opened their first shop in the USA in Water Tower Place shopping mall in downtown Chicago. This was followed by another shop in Woodfield Mall about two weeks later.
A further momentous decision was taken in 1982 which was to purchase a large piece of land near Alfreton in Derbyshire for the construction of a new factory which started in 1983. Factory capacity at Belper and Sheffield was now nearly fully utilised and provision had to be made for further space.
Tony Thornton retired in January 1984 and Peter became Chairman, Phase 2 of the construction of the new factory started in the middle of that year. By the end of 1984 the company had six shops now trading in the USA but it was still failing to achieve that elusive profit. On 3 November 1984 Norman Thornton died. On the 15 March 1985 the new factory at Alfreton was opened by HM the Queen.
In late December 1986 the decision was taken by the Board to seek a public listing for the business to take place probably in October 1987. Peter Thornton resigned from the company in July 1987 and the public listing took place the following year, 1988 when the profit reached £15,045 million (in current terms), a margin of 14.37%.
The Thornton family have continued to play an active role in the business, and it was only in 1996 that a non-Thornton CEO (Roger Paffard) was appointed.
The 2009 results show turnover increasing to £214.8 million, but operating profit decreasing to £7.94 million. There is a significant impact of seasonality on the sales demand and a number of strategies have been undertaken to attempt to address this issue – however, 35% of sales are still in the seven-week period before Christmas and a further 10% before Easter. The impact of this on both manufacturing and service are significant, with temporary staff covering positions.
Following a strategic review in June 2011, Thorntons announced it would close between 120 and 180 of its shops.
On 3 April 2007, Thorntons set up what is thought to be the world's first edible billboard
. The 14.5 ft by 9.5 ft (4.4 m by 2.9 m) and 390 kg (860 lb) sign was erected outside their Covent Garden
, London shop, and was devoured by eager passers-by within 3 hours. The structure included 10 chocolate bunnies, 72 giant chocolate eggs and 128 chocolate panels, each weighing 2 kg. The publicity stunt was decided following poor Christmas 2006 sales.
Chocolate
Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...
company established by Joseph William Thornton
Joseph William Thornton
Joseph William Thornton was born in Sheffield, England, in 1870. He died in 1919.Thornton founded the Thorntons chocolate company, famous for its toffee, when he opened his first shop at 159 Norfolk Street, Sheffield in 1911....
in 1911. Thorntons today is a £180 million turnover company with nearly 400 shops and cafes and around 200 franchises
Franchising
Franchising is the practice of using another firm's successful business model. The word 'franchise' is of anglo-French derivation - from franc- meaning free, and is used both as a noun and as a verb....
together with internet, mail order
Mail order
Mail order is a term which describes the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote method such as through a telephone call or web site. Then, the products are delivered to the customer...
and commercial services. Since the takeover of Cadburys by US company Kraft
Kraft Foods
Kraft Foods Inc. is an American confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate. It markets many brands in more than 170 countries. 12 of its brands annually earn more than $1 billion worldwide: Cadbury, Jacobs, Kraft, LU, Maxwell House, Milka, Nabisco, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Trident, Tang...
, Thorntons is now the largest, independent chocolate and confectionery company in the United Kingdom. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
and is a constituent of the FTSE Fledgling Index
FTSE Fledgling Index
The FTSE Fledgling Index consists of under 200 UK companies outside of the FTSE All-Share Index.This Index is calculated in real-time and published every minute.-Current constituents of the FTSE Fledgling Index:*AEA Technology*AXA Property Trust Ld...
.
Notable products
Continental and Special ToffeeToffee
Toffee is a confection made by caramelizing sugar or molasses along with butter, and occasionally flour. The mixture is heated until its temperature reaches the hard crack stage of 300 to 310 °F...
account for almost £80 million of Thornton's sales and are often cited as two of the favourites among the Thornton product line.
Products
- Thorntons Hot Chocolate
- Thorntons Chocolate Alphabet Truffles
- Thorntons Mint Chocolate Collection
- Thorntons No Added Sugar Collection
History
The Thornton family lived in Leeds for many years having various occupations from shopkeeper to innkeeper until eventually Joseph Thornton, born 1832, moved south to become a railway shopkeeper in Sheffield. He married in 1868 and two years later Joseph William Thornton was born.
Joseph grew up to become a commercial traveller with the Don Confectionery Company and opened his first Thorntons Chocolate Kabin shop in October 1911 on the corner of Norfolk Street and Howard Street in Sheffield. At that time the family was living in rented property in the nearby Derbyshire village of Hathersage.
It was Joseph William’s intention to offer the nicest sweet shop in Sheffield. The walls inside the shop were covered in fashionable cream anaglypta
Anaglypta
Lincrusta was invented in 1877 by Frederick Walton. It became an instant success because it was the first washable wallcovering and appealed to the Victorians because of its sanitary properties as well as its durability and ornate effects. Originally made on a linen backing, it was however, quite...
wallpaper. There was a beautifully shaped glass case from which Kunzle cakes were served individually with tongs. Trays of Mackintosh's Toffee Deluxe were broken into pieces by assistants using toffee hammers and pincers and put into waxed bags on the brass weighing scales. Behind the counter there were mirrors from floor to ceiling, giving the shop a classy air and making it seem much bigger than it actually was, with glass shelves for the knock-stoppered jars of caramels and boiled sweets. Other now-unfamiliar products included Cachous, Violet Cachous, Sweet-Lips, Phul-Nanas and the descriptively-named Curiously Strong Mints.
Joseph couldn’t afford to give up his job at the Don Confectionery Company at the time and he prudently retained his job as a commercial traveller until 1913 to guarantee himself an income. Instead he decided to take his son Norman out of Abbeydale Secondary School when still only 14 to become manager of the shop when it opened. The other members of staff were two young ladies “of a very superior type” who doubtless gave the shop the necessary atmosphere of quality that Joseph sought. There must have been great relief in the family when the shop opened successfully; taking £20 a week, “quite a lot of money….in those days”. It was successful enough to persuade Joseph in 1913 finally to leave his job and risk opening another shop.'
The Moor would be the next best place because the rents would be lower and there were considerably more passers-by. It was here in the basement that Joseph began some simple manufacturing of his own products, he would demonstrate to Norman how to make simple boiled sweets such as Fish Mixtures and Mint Rock. In a back room on the ground floor of the shop there was sufficient space to start manufacturing chocolates.
The family left the rented house in Hathersage and moved into rooms above the shop, thus efficiently combining retailing, manufacture and accommodation under one roof. Norman’s youngest brother Stanley obtained a scholarship to Sheffield University to study Chemistry and Physics but because the family was so short of money he was under pressure to relinquish his university place and join his brother Norman in the business. Helpfully, the University allowed him to attend on some evenings and on Saturday mornings to study food technology and this later became a very valuable asset to the business.
Joseph William became ill in 1917 and eventually died in 1919. Norman, just 21 years old, took over the business. Norman worked very hard during the war trying to consolidate trade in the two shops. In 1921 Stanley and Norman formed a limited company called J.W. Thornton Ltd with themselves as the two shareholders. Here were two good partners working together, establishing a secure prospect for the future growth of the family business.
In 1923 economic conditions started to improve and the Thornton brothers decided to open two more shops. The first of these was on London Road just where it joined the end of The Moor, and the second was at nearby 194 Rockingham Street, both being very busy locations. This doubling of outlets meant a doubling of stock for which the new London Road shop had production space.
They had not been at London Road very long when they were told that the property had been put up for sale and they would lose their tenancy unless they could purchase it themselves. This included six shops and four houses. The asking price was £5,000 but the brothers took a chance and were offered what seems like a very good business deal. They paid £250 there and then with an agreement to pay a further £250 in March each subsequent year. This then put great pressure on the business to increase earnings in the early part of the year, writing people’s names on Easter eggs doesn’t seem to have been a particularly original idea but it did prove to be a very successful one right from the start, increasing sales considerably.
In 1924 Thorntons were still selling Mackintosh's Deluxe Toffee but with only modest sales. The two brothers felt they could make something better than this and at a greater profit. Stanley started to experiment, first at home in the kitchen and then in the basement of the shop on The Moor, using his university experience to produce a home-made toffee that everybody seemed to like. They sold it for the relatively high price of 6d (2½p) a quarter - a quarter pound being roughly the equivalent of 114g. It became so popular that it soon made up half of the total sales of the business and remained the company’s pre-eminent product for the next 50 years. It was sold at that same price for 15 years, indicating the negligible inflation in the national economy until the outbreak of the Second World War. This product was the engine that drove the business for many years, and in many people’s minds the words ‘Thorntons’ and ‘toffee’ became synonymous.
Sales rocketed, even during this difficult period of the 1920s, and an even better Special Toffee was introduced along with an increasing variety of chocolates. Vigorous promotions, such as the ‘Saturday Specials’, a precursor to the ‘Buy One Get One Free’ offers of today, ensured that customers were reminded of the excellence of the brand. A further two shops opened in 1926, the year of the General Strike, one in neighbouring Rotherham and the other on Union Street. The Rotherham shop was the first outside of Sheffield and was a great success but the one on Union Street was less so and became the company’s first shop to be considered a failure. It closed within a year.
The brothers now had to split their responsibilities: Norman managed the shops and did all the administration, Stanley oversaw all the manufacturing. They still took important decisions together following what were described by Stanley as “heated but friendly arguments”. As it was then a buyer’s market for shops they could always get short leases with a three-year break clause. A successful format had been established and in 1928 a new shop was opened in Castle Street followed in 1930 by shops in Leopold Street and in Spital Hill, all in Sheffield. The latter soon closed, but a very successful shop appeared in 1931 in the heart of the city at Fitzalan Square.
By the early 1930s Thorntons were aware that their successful formula could be expanded over the North of England and maybe even to Scotland. They remained unsure of the South, believing that the consumption of confectionery was linked to average ambient temperature. With true Northern pride they saw their products as part of the culture of the region and were not convinced that effete Southerners would ever want to buy a product such as Thorntons Special Toffee from Sheffield! The Scots, on the other hand, were known to have a very sweet tooth and perhaps would buy even more than the Sassenachs! It goes without saying that their assumptions about Southerners proved to be completely unfounded.
Mancunians got their first taste of Thorntons’ products in 1932 with a shop on Oxford Street, only the second branch to open outside Sheffield. It was followed by a shop at 37a Boar Lane in Leeds, appropriately the area in which the family had lived for centuries. The Thorntons had come home!
The brothers decided in 1934 on a purpose-built factory instead of relying on rented premises. They chose Archer Road, surrounded by new suburban estates designed to re-house council tenants from the slum clearance programmes after the Great War. This site was about four miles (6 km) south of the city centre with cleaner air and closer to the countryside. The factory was a modest 2000 sq ft (185.8 m²). on each floor, two years later they built a similar-sized extension.
War was declared in September 1939. Suddenly the steel works in Sheffield were busy again. This led to a boost in other regional businesses, including Thorntons, although this was short-lived, offset by other negative factors, chiefly the shortage of raw materials, particularly cane sugar which of course always had to be imported. Confectionery was quickly rationed to a mere two ounces a week. Staffing in the retail shops was reduced as individuals, male and female, left for military service.
The company had opened eight new shops in the year before the start of hostilities making a total of 35 shops in 18 towns, The war put paid to any further expansion for at least ten years. Indeed, some shops were actually lost, either through expired leases or air-raids. There were at least 30 instances of retail premises suffering war damage. The night of the 1 and 2 June 1940 was just such an occasion when three of Thornton’s shops in Manchester were heavily bombed and reduced to rubble. The branch on Mosley Street in the heart of the city was a particular loss as the brothers were extremely proud of this very successful large branch with its five display windows.
Later that year in Sheffield heavy bombing took place on the night of the 12 and 13 December, destroying much of The Moor including the shop where the family had once lived and the shops on London Road. The Thorntons factory on Archer Road was only superficially damaged but gas, electricity and other services were lost for seven weeks. With some remarkable forethought, the brothers had anticipated such a contingency and had recently acquired a small bankrupt factory in Lancashire to transfer production there if necessary.
After the war it was time to look forward and consider further expansion. An application for a building licence to extend the Sheffield factory on its quarry site was refused because of the very great shortage of building materials and skilled labour. One of the brothers saw an advertisement in a local paper offering a factory in a place called Belper in Derbyshire about 35 miles (56.3 km) to the south. They successfully acquired the building in 1948 for £8,400 but signally failed to notice that Belper had the lowest rate of unemployment in the country.
Norman had three sons, Tony born in 1927, Peter in 1933 and John in 1943. Stanley had one son, Michael born in 1936. These young men right from the start were set up to shoulder the responsibility of keeping Thornton’s at the forefront of the confectionery business. Tony Thornton joined the business in 1948 and initially worked at the factory in Belper, after about 5 years he began to take over retail management from his father, Norman. Peter joined in 1953 working also at the Belper factory in the vacations from the London Borough Polytechnic where he was studying Chocolate and Sugar Confectionery. He finished the course in 1954 and then joined the business full time.
By this time the company had established strong differential advantages over competitors, they were; rigid rules for the products and for running the retail business which were always followed at each new retail location, the Special Toffee product, writing names on Easter Eggs and a fourth advantage was about to be created, this was the Continental Chocolates range.
In early 1954, Walter Willen, a young Swiss confectioner, came to work for Thorntons. He came originally just to learn English, possibly to stay for a year and then go home. Fortunately for Thorntons he remained until his retirement. Walter set to creating a new range of handmade confectionery called Swiss Assortment. Such beautiful pieces, round spiky milk and plain chocolates, slices with layers of nut paste, pineapple fourée and everything else! So delicious! Eventually the name changed to the Continental Assortment because the Swiss Embassy complained. Stanley Thornton worked closely with Walter during this period so that the recipes could be adapted more to the English taste.
In 1956 Beryl Willis 'Jean' became manager of one of the Thorntons factories. She died at the age of 86 in February 1926 - 2011
In July 1956 Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal. The Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden, considered invading Suez, a concept that aroused international consternation and Peter was recalled into the army to await the expected invasion. He was finally released after nine boring months in the Reserve Army in December 1956 having seen nothing more than Aldershot.
In January 1957 Peter became manager of the Chocolate Department in Sheffield and Michael Thornton joined the business in the same year. By this time also Tony had started to take over responsibility for retail management from Norman and became fully responsible by 1960 as Retail Director. In 1962 Peter became Production Director and Michael assumed responsibility for Company Secretarial duties, Administration and Finance.
From then on great strides forward were taken by the new young family management team. Tony improved the shop designs, display and management generally whilst at the same time rapidly expanding the chain. Peter greatly improved productivity, mechanisation, quality management, production capacity and personnel management systems. Particularly the ‘Factory Council’ unanimous voting representative system was introduced, based on the Glacier Metal system. The Council agreed Terms of Employment and wage rate banding, the result of this and many other measures was outstanding industrial relations. Michael reviewed and refined the administration and financial control systems.
By 1967 the business had nearly 90 shops making a profit of almost £250,000 on a turnover of over £1.7 million. (That would translate in today’s finances to a profit of almost £3 million).
The capacity of the Belper factory became a limitation on further expansion but it was very fortunate that Thorntons were able to purchase adjacent land and property to continue the expansion with new buildings.
John Thornton joined the business in 1967; he obtained an engineering degree at Cambridge and then worked for a year in Germany at a confectionery machinery manufacturing company for his practical experience in order to complete his studies.
In 1968 Norman Thornton finally gave up his Chairmanship of the company and Tony and Stanley became Joint Managing Directors. The company began manufacturing for Marks and Spencer under their trading name and started the franchising system which made retailing in small towns possible.
In 1978 a management re-organisation took place when Peter moved to retail management and John took over as Production Director, this was changed again after another year when John became Joint Managing Director in charge of Operations and Peter, Joint Managing Director responsible for Sales and Marketing. Peter then worked together with Professor Peter Doyle of Bradford and later Warwick University to carry out a retail re-positioning exercise which was eventually very successful the company making a net profit of 11.75% in 1981 equivalent to £6.23 million in current terms.
Thorntons continued to be a seasonal business however but the peak seasons were very large; the year started with Valentine's Day, was followed by Mother’s Day, Easter remained a peak period for the business and then trading eased throughout the summer until October when the charge was full-tilt towards Christmas. At Christmas the shops were packed solid right through to the last minute. There’d be queues out to the pavements on Fridays and Saturdays. The stores at the backs of the shops would be stacked so high it was almost impossible to move. It was a joy to visit at this time of year, assuming you could actually get inside! No one minded the crush as the season seemed to bring out a jovial spirit in everyone.
Tony and Peter Thornton now started to investigate the opportunity to purchase a business in the USA as a diversification, this entailed many visits across the Atlantic taking Peter away from his role as Joint MD for retailing. John asked the Board to appoint him as sole MD in view of this. It was agreed and Peter then became Group Development Director in 1981.
In October 1982 Thorntons opened their first shop in the USA in Water Tower Place shopping mall in downtown Chicago. This was followed by another shop in Woodfield Mall about two weeks later.
A further momentous decision was taken in 1982 which was to purchase a large piece of land near Alfreton in Derbyshire for the construction of a new factory which started in 1983. Factory capacity at Belper and Sheffield was now nearly fully utilised and provision had to be made for further space.
Tony Thornton retired in January 1984 and Peter became Chairman, Phase 2 of the construction of the new factory started in the middle of that year. By the end of 1984 the company had six shops now trading in the USA but it was still failing to achieve that elusive profit. On 3 November 1984 Norman Thornton died. On the 15 March 1985 the new factory at Alfreton was opened by HM the Queen.
In late December 1986 the decision was taken by the Board to seek a public listing for the business to take place probably in October 1987. Peter Thornton resigned from the company in July 1987 and the public listing took place the following year, 1988 when the profit reached £15,045 million (in current terms), a margin of 14.37%.
The Thornton family have continued to play an active role in the business, and it was only in 1996 that a non-Thornton CEO (Roger Paffard) was appointed.
The 2009 results show turnover increasing to £214.8 million, but operating profit decreasing to £7.94 million. There is a significant impact of seasonality on the sales demand and a number of strategies have been undertaken to attempt to address this issue – however, 35% of sales are still in the seven-week period before Christmas and a further 10% before Easter. The impact of this on both manufacturing and service are significant, with temporary staff covering positions.
Following a strategic review in June 2011, Thorntons announced it would close between 120 and 180 of its shops.
Management
The now former CEO Peter Burdon (who left the company in September 2006), proposed a management buy out in February 2004, though this was not successful. Two months later, John Thornton announced his retirement from chairmanship in April 2004.Publicity
Advertising slogans have included:"Chocolate Heaven Since 1911"
"The Art of The Chocolatier"
On 3 April 2007, Thorntons set up what is thought to be the world's first edible billboard
Billboard (advertising)
A billboard is a large outdoor advertising structure , typically found in high traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertisements to passing pedestrians and drivers...
. The 14.5 ft by 9.5 ft (4.4 m by 2.9 m) and 390 kg (860 lb) sign was erected outside their Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
, London shop, and was devoured by eager passers-by within 3 hours. The structure included 10 chocolate bunnies, 72 giant chocolate eggs and 128 chocolate panels, each weighing 2 kg. The publicity stunt was decided following poor Christmas 2006 sales.