HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL BREAD WRAPPING CO.

National Bread Wrapping Co's Sevigne bread wrapping machine was the star of the show on the Baker Perkins stand at the 1924 Wembley Exhibition – the first time that the public had been able to watch loaves being wrapped. By 1929, the National Bread Wrapping Company's bread-wrapping machines were considered to be the best on the American market. Taking advantage of its owner's wish to retire, Baker Perkins Co. Inc. purchased 60% of its shares, the remaining shares being held by the Package Machinery Company. Unfortunately, soon afterwards, a competitor designed a machine that could wrap sliced bread and sales quickly beat those of the National Bread Wrapping Co's machine.

The National Bread Wrapping Co. continued to develop new products and the designs for their 'National' wrapping machine were passed on to Forgrove in 1949. Forgrove produced its 2,500th 'National' BW wrapping machine from its Seacroft factory in 1965. The machine, with its self-measuring paper feed, became an important product, many thousands being sold in nearly thirty countries, wrapping not only loaves of bread but also other food and non-food products.

Baker Perkins took the decision in 1955 to sell the company's interest in the National Bread Wrapping Company. The association between the two American companies had not been entirely satisfactory and Baker Perkins Inc. sold their interest to their co-owner, the Package Machinery Company, in return for shares in Package, a share of the Forgrove royalties and an agreement that they could continue to sell the machines to the bakery industry.

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