It made its first fridge in 1946, the year the Shripney Road site was obtained, with production beginning in 1947.
Charles Purley was the company's chairman until October 1991, shortly before his death in December 1991.
In 1970, the Co Op (Co-operative Wholesale Society) decided to produce its own range of freezers, manufactured by Lec, which retailed at £93.
[citation needed] By the beginning of the 1980s, it had around 1,600 employees, and had around 20% of the domestic refrigeration market in the United Kingdom.
Its products had the Regis suffix, to denote where they were made, but by now had a northern site in Burnley, Lancashire.
In March 1993, the company laid off staff, and its workforce dropped to below 1,000, when it decided to import its compressors from Denmark instead of making them itself.
[6] From 1956, it opened its special products division which made fridges for hospitals, aircraft and laboratories.
Winners included B.Orme and M.Campbell in 1960 and L.A.Humphries in 1965. one of the more famed drivers was David Purley, known for the 1973 Dutch Grand Prix, and son of the company's founder.