Ross Group

Originally a small family-owned fish merchanting company, Ross diversified into trawling, fish processing, and later into food processing in general, expanding into factory farming to become the largest chicken producer in Europe by 1962 via a series of takeovers.

By the outbreak of World War II, Thomas Ross Ltd operated fish merchanting branches in Leeds, Leicester, and Fleetwood as well as its Grimsby base.

In October 1965, it opened a division in the Netherlands with Eurofrost NV called Ross Diepvries in Breda, to distribute and make its products in the Dutch market.

It bought Grimsby Motors in June 1959, Sterling Poultry (broiler chicken) in May 1961, and Waterworth Brothers (fruitshops) in August 1964.

The building, still in use as the head offices of Young's Bluecrest and known as 'Ross House', dominates the southern wall of the town's once thriving fish docks.

While the non-fish food companies were subject to several further takeovers, the Ross fishing fleet was acquired by British United Trawlers by a merger with Associated Fisheries organised by the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation on 2 April 1969; Ross had tried to buy this company in 1961, then bid £15.5 million in December 1965, and £17 million in January 1966.

Ross Poultry was producing around £4 million per year, with its Buxted (now based in Suffolk) and Premier Farm brands.