 | It has been suggested that Jacob Fruitfield Food Group be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since October 2026. |
Jacob's is an Irish brand of biscuits and crackers primarily sold in the Ireland and the United Kingdom. Jacob's is owned in the Irish market by Jacob Fruitfield Food Group, part of Valeo Foods; in the UK market by Pladis, through Pladis (UK) Limited; and in the Asian market by Mondelēz International.
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Jacob's originated in the mid-nineteenth century as a small bread and sea-biscuit bakery run by William Beale Jacob in Waterford, Ireland. William's brother Robert joined the business in 1851, forming the partnership of W. & R. Jacob. In 1852, the brothers acquired new premises at Peter's Row in Dublin, Ireland, and in 1853 opened the W. & R. Jacob's Steam Biscuit Factory. The Dublin factory was one of several prominent buildings occupied by rebels during the Easter Rising in 1916.
Jacob's first English factory opened in 1914 in Aintree, Liverpool, and remains the primary UK producer of Jacob's products including Cream Crackers and Twiglets. In 1922, a separate English company was formed and the Dublin and Liverpool branches separated. After the separation, the Dublin branch retained the name W. & R. Jacob while the Liverpool branch became known as Jacob's Bakery Ltd.
From the 1960s to the early 2000s, both bakeries underwent a series of mergers. In 1960, Jacob's Bakery joined Associated Biscuits, which was purchased by Nabisco in 1982. Associated Biscuits was subsequently acquired by Danone in 1989 and renamed The Jacob's Bakery Ltd. Meanwhile, W. & R. Jacob merged with Boland's Bakery in the 1970s to form Irish Biscuits Ltd., and in 1973 moved to a factory in the Dublin suburb of Tallaght.: 19:15
In 1991, the two companies again came under common ownership when Danone also acquired Irish Biscuits. In 2004, Danone and United Biscuits announced that they had agreed for the latter to acquire the UK and Ireland operations of Irish Biscuits and Jacob's Biscuits brands, known collectively as the Jacob's Biscuit Group. Just days after the acquisition was announced, however, Danone, United Biscuits, and Fruitfield Foods reported that Jacob's Biscuit Group would be split, with United Biscuits acquiring only the UK portion of the group and Fruitfield Foods acquiring the Irish portion. Fruitfield Foods was subsequently renamed the Jacob Fruitfield Food Group and is now part of the Valeo Food Group, which was established in September 2010 through the merger of Batchelors and Origin Foods. In November 2014, United Biscuits, including the UK Jacob's brand, was acquired by Turkish conglomerate Yıldız Holding. In January 2016, United Biscuits was brought under Pladis, Yildiz Holding's new global snacking subsidiary. United Biscuits' UK operating business subsequently became Pladis (UK) Limited.
Outside of the UK and Ireland, Danone retained Jacob's brand ownership in Asia, operating a manufacturing facility in Malaysia until its biscuit division was acquired by Kraft Foods in 2007. Following that acquisition, production and sales of Jacob's biscuits in Malaysia are undertaken by Mondelēz International.
In 2015, the Jacob's factory in Liverpool reported producing over 55,000 tonnes of products each year, and in 2022 reported producing 4,000 tonnes of crackers each year. In 2015, the Liverpool factory received a £10 million investment from United Biscuits to boost output further.
In 2026, the company marks its 175th anniversary.
The activist and trade union organiser Rosie Hackett worked as a messenger at Jacob's for some years in the early twentieth century. At that time, working conditions in the Dublin factory were poor. On 22 August 1911, Hackett helped organise the withdrawal of women's labour in the Jacob's factory to support their male colleagues who were already on strike. With the women's help, the men secured better working conditions and a pay rise. Two weeks later, at the age of eighteen, Hackett co-founded the Irish Women Workers' Union (IWWU) with Delia Larkin. During the 1913 Dublin lock-out, Hackett helped mobilise workers at Jacob's to come out in solidarity with other workers; Jacob's workers were, in turn, locked out by their own employers. In 1914, Jacob's sacked Hackett for her role in the lock-out.
In 2009, after 156 years of making biscuits in Ireland, Jacob Fruitfield shut its Tallaght plant. As a result of the closure, 220 jobs were lost, with the company retaining around 100 staff in a variety of roles.
In November 2022, workers at the Aintree factory went on strike after three months of pay negotiations with management failed to reach an agreement. Workers were on strike for 11 weeks, backed by the GMB union. During the strike, the company temporarily shifted some production to Portugal. In 2023, Pladis announced plans for job cuts, beginning with a phase of voluntary redundancies through the end of 2025. GMB reported that 361 of around 760 workers were to be made redundant under the plan.
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From the mid-1970s onward, Jacob's ran a number of television advertising campaigns, particularly in Ireland. One Irish campaign used the phrase "How To Get The Fig Into The Fig Rolls".[citation needed]
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Frank Kelly and Maureen Potter appeared in a series of adverts, including one in which a German professor, played by Kelly, disputes the pronunciation of "Jacob's" while in South America.[citation needed]
A mid-1970s campaign for Club Milk used the slogan "best after all", and a mid-1980s campaign for Telax bars used a space-science theme.[citation needed]
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Jacob's used the slogan "Take The Biscuit".[citation needed]
The Chocolate Collection was advertised in 1992 with the slogan "It's The Same Chocolate With A Different Biscuit Under It", and Camelot biscuits were advertised around the same time with a cartoon themed on the Children of Lir.[citation needed]
In the late 2000s, "Some Kind of Wonderful" was used as a slogan.[citation needed]
In the pre-decimal era (before 1971), Jacob's Cream Crackers were advertised on the backs of bus tickets on the Isle of Man.
In 2026 back adverting to celebrate 175th anniversary.
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