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Overseas Trading
Corporation (Jersey)
The
Overseas Trading Corporation Ltd was registered in Jersey
on 31 January 1920 with the purpose of
blending and packaging teas, in expensive
wrapping, for high-class retailers and the
export market; in fact to half the
countries of the world. Lemon tea to
France, Blackcurrant tea to Sweden and
Camomile tea to Spain. And, of course Earl
Grey to almost everywhere else. At one
time Sun Works (the company's factory)
made up 250 different kinds of packages
which were exported to 40 countries. In
its formative years it also took on the
manufacturing and packaging of grocery
items such as Tomato Sauce and Salad Cream
(Jersey Lily and Lyonaize respectively).
The
first export tea-packing trade in Jersey
had been established
in April 1876 by Thomas Cook, an export merchant
from Reading, with flourishing markets in
South America and the Far East. He rented premises
in Commercial Buildings, Old Harbour, St
Helier, from where his tea-packing
business was launched. Cook was killed in a
hunting accident in 1890, the business
passed to Joseph Walker who, with his five
sons, continued to enlarge the firm. Most
of Walker's sons established themselves in
Buenos Aires, building up a reputation for
tea sold throughout Argentina under the
brand name of Te Sol, which had been
registered as a trademark by Cook himself
in 1880. The distribution centre in Buenos
Aires originally operated under the name
of Compania Te Sol but in 1912 it
converted to a limited company known as
Walker Hermanos Limitada.
When
Joseph Walker's business rapidly outgrew
its premises in Jersey in 1900, the
company bought a large plot of land at
First Tower and constructed a modern
factory there. As Jersey enjoyed 5 per
cent more sunshine annually than the
sunniest spots on the south coast of
England, Joseph Walker appropriately named
it the Sun Works (this name was also
reflected in the Argentina brand, Te Sol).
The following year
the business was converted into a limited
company (J. J. Walker & Sons Ltd) but
in 1912 was subsequently renamed Walkers
Ltd.
While
Thomas Walker (one of Joseph Walker's
sons) and William Bruce Douglas, a director of W. H.
& F. J. Horniman & Co. Ltd (now in
the hands of Lyons), were homeward bound on the same ship
from South America in 1920, they discussed
the possibility of a merger between the
two firms. This culminated in the
formation of the Overseas Trading
Corporation Ltd with 51 per of the
enterprise owned by Lyons and the balance
by Walker. By the outbreak of war in 1939
Overseas Trading Corporation had become
one of the largest companies on the
island. With the fall of France Jersey was
occupied and the company's valuable tea
stocks were confiscated by the German
occupiers. By the end of the war the tea
stocks had been exhausted, much of it
having been given away to visiting senior
army personnel as gifts.
After
the war the business was restarted and in
1968 Lyons bought
out the remaining shareholders and thus it
became a wholly owned subsidiary. By the
1980s it was employing approximately 170
people and by then most of the tea was
shipped out as teabags but, unlike the UK
market, most of the teabags were tagged.
Apart from the adaptation to teabags there
was also the arrival of flavoured teas
with exotic tastes such as mint,
chocolate, apricot and nutmeg becoming
popular. Despite this trend Earl Grey
remained the most popular (it was the
second Earl, Charles Grey, and his Reform
Act of 1832 which did much to bring a
wider franchise of tea to Britain). In the
early 1990s the Sun Works in Jersey were
closed and the Overseas Trading
Corporation relocated to Greenford on the
mainland.
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