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The company was set up by Walter Richard Fox as a wholesale grocery and confectionery business in 1880. It started in a Victorian warehouse in Leicester. By 1897 Fox was manufacturing over 100 different confectionery lines.[1]
In 1969, the company was acquired by Mackintosh's, a year prior to the creation of Rowntree Mackintosh when Mackintosh merged with Rowntree's of York. After purchasing Rowntree-Macintosh in 1988, Nestlé sold the Fox's Brand and its Leicester site to Northern Foods in 2001. The company was sold to Big Bear Ltd in 2003. Big Bear Confectionery had sites in Blackburn, Leicester and Nimbus.
^Jack, Ian (18 June 2005). "Tunnel Vision". ("Ian Jack is perplexed by an academic take on the Rev W Awdrey's [sic] 'funny little engine'"). guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 16 June 2009.
1 Currently manufactured by General Mills in the U.S. and Canada. Produced by Cereal Partners under the Nestlé brand elsewhere. 2 Brand owned by General Mills; U.S. and Canadian production rights controlled by Nestlé under license. 3 U.S. production rights owned by The Hershey Company. 4 U.S. rights and production owned by the Smarties Candy Company with a different product. 5 U.S. rights and specific trade dress owned by Nestlé; rights elsewhere owned by Associated British Foods. 6 Produced by Cereal Partners, branded as Nestlé. 7 Produced by Cereal Partners and branded as Nestlé in the U.K. and Ireland. Produced by Post Foods elsewhere. 8 Philippine production rights owned by Alaska Milk Corporation. 9 Singaporean, Malaysian and Thai production rights owned by Fraser and Neave. 10 Used only in Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia. 11 Used only in the Philippines. 12 U.S. production rights owned by the Ferrara Candy Company. 13NA rights and specific trade dress to all packaged coffee and other products under the Starbucks brand owned by Nestlé since 2019. 14 Brand owned by Mars, sold by Nestlé in Canada. 15 Produced by Froneri in the U.S. since 2020.