Hovis Ltd is a British company that produces flour, yeast

and bread. Created by miller Richard "Stoney" Smith at his small mill in Stone, Staffordshire (Smith's mill still exists, behind the town's Morrisons supermarket), it began mass-production when Smith partnered with the larger Fitton & Sons mill in Macclesfield in 1886.

Hovis specialises in high wheatgerm wholemeal flour, the bread being baked independently. It also produces the Nimble brand reduced-calorie bread.

Owner Endless LLP agreed a sale of the firm in August 2025 to Associated British Foods for £75m, however it was expected to be brought before the Competition and Markets Authority.

==History==<!-- more details in the Hovis process was patented on 6 October 1887 by Richard "Stoney" Smith (1836–1900), and S. Fitton & Sons Ltd developed the brand, milling the flour and selling it along with Hovis-branded baking tins to other bakers. The name was coined in 1890 by London student Herbert Grime in a national competition set by S. Fitton & Sons Ltd to find a trading name for their patent flour which was rich in wheat germ. Grime won £25 when he coined the word from the Latin phrase hominis vis, "the strength of man".

In November 2020, it was announced that both the Gores Group and Premier Foods had sold their stakes in the business to British-based private equity firm Endless LLP.

Advertising

thumb|1895 Advertisement for Hovis Bread

In 1915, when the London and South Western Railway inaugurated their first electric train services, they introduced alphabetical head-codes in lieu of the traditional discs used on steam locomotives so that the general public could more easily identify their train. A 1926 advertisement widely deployed on the railways showed five such trains carrying headcodes H ō V I S along with an explanation (H-Hampton Court, ō-Hounslow, V-Kingston [V for Thames Valley], I-Dorking North & Effingham, and S-Shepperton). The "clockwise" Hounslow Loop head-code was a slightly height-reduced 'O' topped by a bar, accurately reflecting the same letter in HōVIS where the macron diacritical mark signifies the abbreviation of hominis.

right|thumb|[[Gold Hill, Shaftesbury, where Ridley Scott filmed the 1973 Hovis commercial]]

In 1973, Hovis ran a television advertisement, Boy on the Bike, Filmed on Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset, Scott's advert has been voted Britain's favourite advertisement of all time. An original film print was restored by the BFI in 2019 and is available on their Advertising Collection.

This advertisement was repeated on British television for a 10-day run in May 2006 to commemorate the firm's 120th anniversary. The soundtrack had to be re-recorded to meet advertising standards.

In 2008 Hovis departed from the "boy on a bike" format by commissioning Go On Lad, a retrospective advertisement documenting the 122 years of British history since the brand's launch. Go On Lad was voted "Advert of the Decade" by the British public in December 2009.

Hovis map books

left|thumb|Hovis bread monument at Gold Hill

Hovis Ltd. published a series of map books which included advertisements for their products. In 1899 the company produced eight books of maps, covering England and Wales, designed for cyclists. In 1920 the company published Where to Go and How to Get There: Hovis Road Map of England, Wales and Scotland, and several versions of this book were later printed.

Hovis biscuit

Since 1980, Hovis have licensed Jacob's to produce a digestive biscuit, branded as Hovis.

References

  • Hovis on Facebook
  • Hovis profile on Twitter