In 1949, the firm of Rowland Smith & Son, managed by Messrs. R.W. Smith and R.R. Smith, imported various products into Great Britain under their brand Ye Olde Oak. After years of rationing during World War II, the people started to desire quality and new ideas for meals again. The reputation of Ye Olde Oak grew fast and it became synonymous with products of consistently high quality.
Ye Olde Oak is a major player in the market. Under the same inspiring leadership as that of his predecessors, from the end of the 1950s, Mr. John Baker raised the level of the brand name Ye Olde Oak to an increasingly higher level.
At the beginning of the 1960s, Ye Olde Oak was the largest brand in Great Britain. This was due to the large success of the remarkable pear-formed ham. In this period, Ye Olde Oak was prominent in the development of advertising in Great Britain. Ye Olde Oak invested considerably in publicity and was the first food product company to use radio and television advertising. It was also among the first brands that manifested itself with a great illuminated advertisement at Piccadilly Circus in London.
In 1985, the Ye Olde Oak brand name became the company name. Production and distribution to the United Kingdom and the export markets still takes place under this label. To this very day, the company is a market leader and is continually looking for possibilities of further growth in existing and new markets.