Fray Bentos (food brand)

Created in the second half of the 19th century, the name is derived from the port of Fray Bentos in Uruguay where the products were originally processed and packaged until the 1960s.

The Fray Bentos brand is known for the manufacture and sale in the United Kingdom of a range of tinned meat pies such as steak and kidney and minced beef and onion.

[4] Campbell's Soup Company manufactures and sells steak and kidney pies in Australia under the Fray Bentos brand name.

[9] With the outbreak of the Boer War, the company's profits were significantly boosted from supplying corned beef to the British Army in South Africa.

[1] One of the early British tanks that fought at the Battle of Passchendaele was given the nickname "Fray Bentos",[12] because the men inside felt like tinned meat.

[5] The product range was expanded to include canned meat pies such as steak and kidney and minced beef and onion.

[1][2] In 1958, Vestey began manufacturing Fray Bentos pies in England,[16] and production was moved to a plant in the London Borough of Hackney.

[10][17] The corned beef had been contaminated as a result of the cooling process during manufacture, in which the untreated water used had come, according to BBC News, "from a river into which an estimated 66 tonnes of human excrement and 250,000 gallons of urine entered every day".

[3] Baxters extended the Fray Bentos range to include "deep fill" pies (discontinued by 2022) and microwaveable bowl products.