A year earlier, he had quit school to join up, but his father refused to give his consent – the legal age of enlistment being nineteen at the time.

While in uniform overseas, Weston toured the world-famous British biscuit factories and became convinced that the same sort of product could be manufactured and marketed in Canada.

They were introduced at that year's Canadian National Exhibition, and the Toronto Daily Star reported long lines of fairgoers waiting to sample the new product.

[citation needed] In spite of the onset of the Great Depression, Weston continued to expand operations in Canada, often acquiring financially troubled competitors.

"[citation needed]In 1931, with the world mired in the Great Depression, the price of wheat collapsed and the incomes of Canadian farmers, particularly those in Western Canada, plunged.

Weston, with business and family ties to the West, devised a plan to expand international markets for Canadian wheat, then the country's most important export.

[7] He closed the antiquated plant at Aberdeen and moved production to a new facility with modern equipment at Edinburgh, with the intent of mass-producing a more affordable line of quality biscuits.

By 1937, with 15 plants, employing more than 15,000 workers under the Allied Bakeries banner, Weston was being referred to in the Canadian press as "Britain's Biggest Baker".

[10] With Great Britain at war with Germany, Weston was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Macclesfield in the British House of Commons in November 1939.

"[11] By this time, Weston, as chairman and managing director of Allied Bakeries, headed an operation that consisted of 38 plants throughout the United Kingdom.

[13] Then, in August 1940, following a day of heavy aerial losses during the Battle of Britain, Weston gave £100,000 for the replacement of 16 fighter aircraft[14] The donation received considerable press coverage, promoted by the Ministry of Aircraft Production and fellow Canadian Lord Beaverbrook, in the hope of raising more money through public donations to the "Spitfire Fund."

[15] During the Blitz, the Nazi aerial bombing campaign, he set up a system of canteens that fed thousands of civilians as they took shelter in the London Underground.

In 1945, with the defeat of Nazi Germany, Weston left British politics to return home to Canada, where he settled on the West Coast for a time.

In 1947, Weston was offered a large block of shares in Loblaw Groceterias Co. Limited, one of the country's leading grocery chains, and over the following years acquired controlling interest.

He also continued to buy bakeries in Canada and the United States, including the Southern Biscuit Company of Richmond, Virginia, and the Texas Cookie Co. of Fort Worth.

And in 1955, his Allied Bakeries purchased ABC, the Aerated Bread Company, England's second largest chain of eateries, with 164 budget tea shops and restaurants.

Meanwhile, ten percent of all bread in Great Britain was baked in Weston plants, while 20 million Weston-made biscuits were eaten daily by the British public.

[17] During the mid-1950s, Weston began developing a chain of British grocery stores under the Fine Fare banner, but early on the venture struggled with losses.

[18] In 1961, Weston also founded a new company, Food and General Holdings Ltd, with which to enter the British flour milling industry for supply to his bread bakeries.

[3] Weston also won a foothold in the French retail market after indicating to President Charles de Gaulle that he could reduce food prices in the Republic.

In 1957, subsidiary Loblaw Companies Limited acquired a large stake in Chicago-based grocer National Tea, with over 700 food stores in the United States.

Meanwhile, on the resource based side, George Weston Limited bought fish processors British Columbia Packers in 1962 and Connors Brothers of New Brunswick in 1967.

In December 1966, following enquiries by a Canadian parliamentary committee examining consumer prices, George Weston Limited revealed the full extent of its corporate holdings.

With dwindling cash, considerable debt, and supermarket price wars that had cut the company's share of the crucial Ontario market in half, he asked his youngest son, Galen Weston, to take a look at Loblaws to see if it could be saved.

The sale of its Chicago, Syracuse, and California State supermarkets, or about half its remaining outlets in the U.S., represented the first step in a gradual divestiture of all retail and wholesale operations south of the border.