Krotoszyn was founded by local nobleman Wierzbięta Krotoski [pl], participant of the Battle of Grunwald,[3] and was granted town rights in 1415 by King Władysław II Jagiełło.

[4] It was a private town owned by the Krotoski, Niewieski, Rozdrażewski and Potocki families, historically located in the Kalisz Voivodeship in the Greater Poland Province.

[3] After the town suffered a fire in 1453, King Casimir IV of Poland vested it with new privileges, establishing a weekly market and three annual fairs.

[9] During the German occupation the Polish population was subjected to mass arrests,[10] Germanisation policies, discrimination, expulsions, executions[3] and deportations to forced labour in Germany.

[11] The town was liberated by Soviet troops and local Poles in January 1945[3] and restored to Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which then stayed in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s.

The officially protected traditional food originating from Krotoszyn is wędzonka krotoszyńska, a type of Polish smoked pork meat (as designated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Poland).

[16] Local traditions of meat production date back hundreds of years, and the first butchers' guilds were established shortly after granting town rights in the early 15th century.