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Lyons Patisserie Ltd
(CDL44 Ltd)
CDL44 Ltd
was founded in 1981 by Chris Liveras and
his two sons, Dion and Paul. Their
initials, and the fact that Chris Liveras
was 44 when he started the business, is
the reason behind the company's unusual
name. Chris Liveras had come to England
from Cyprus in 1956 and for a time he
worked in the Coventry Street Corner House
making jellies. The story goes that his
jelly making was not up to the Lyons
standard and was persuaded to look
elsewhere for employment.
In 1982
and based in Hartlepool, Teeside, Chris
Liveras started a family business
producing hand-made, high quality frozen
cakes and gateaux. The north-east area of
the UK has a long tradition of steel,
coal, engineering and shipbuilding and it
seemed unusual to start a cake making
business in these parts. As a result it
was difficult to recruit staff for food
manufacturing and so with no local
tradition of cake manufacturing CDL had to
train its own confectioners to carry out
the skilled tasks that cake production
demands. Although it was possible to
automate some aspects of production much
of the cake decoration was carried out by
hand and this made the operation at
Hartlepool labour intensive. In those days
machines could not place a half cherry,
the right way up, on a cream whirl.
Nevertheless Chris Liveras and his family
persevered and after six years of
continuous growth they were one of half a
dozen companies making bespoke frozen
cakes supplying their products to hotels,
caterers and stores in and around
Hartlepool and beyond. Own-brand gateaux
in portion sizes from six to eighteen were
made for many of the leading supermarket
chains including Asda and Gateway. The
business was developed without
compromising on raw materials and the CDL
product range of gateaux, éclairs
and rhum-babas used a great deal of fresh
cream - almost 2,000 gallons per day. CDL
also developed their own brand which sold
under the Majestic Label.
Lyons
acquired CDL in September 1988, six years
after it started, and gradual changes were
made to management side of the business.
Firstly Bob Hutchinson, who had previously
worked at Hale Trent Cakes, was appointed
Finance Director in October 1988 and
Gordon Jenkins, Chairman of European Cake,
Biscuit and Confectionery Sector, became
the Chairman. Dion and Paul Liveras were
joint Managing Directors, with Paul having
responsibility for sales and distribution
and the older brother Dion looking after
production and purchasing. Other changes
occurred in the accounting, budgeting and
computer systems but the production system
continued to operate in the traditional
style. In March 1989, as part of its
integration into Lyons, the company
changed its name to Lyons Patisserie Ltd
which coincided with its new Lyons
Patisserie range.
When Lyons
took over the company, CDL were employing
375 staff and were already associated with
the Lyons Group; Margetts Ltd were
supplying fruit toppings and DCA prepared
cake mixes. However, the fortunes of Lyons
deteriorated in the late 1980s and early
1990s when Allied Domecq plc, the parent
company of J. Lyons & Co, management
decided to refocus the business on spirits
and wines. A casualty of this re-focusing
was Lyons Patisserie Ltd and it was sold
to Sweet 'n' Savory Frozen Foods in
1994/95; the precise date is not
known.
©
Peter
Bird 2003
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