Sunny Spread

Food > Jams, Spreads etc

36 Comments

Sunny Spread
Sunny Spread
Year: 1953
Views: 27,419
Item #: 1145
Here's Golden Goodness for your family... Children love Sunny Spread - its sweet golden goodness will brighten their breakfast and start them off well on another lively day...
Source: Picture Post. February 28, 1953

Comment by: David on 25th September 2023 at 06:56

I was planting some Azaleas in the garden yesterday and dug up a complete jar

Comment by: Angela Knott on 25th August 2023 at 05:40

My Great Aunt worked there in 1921 and later married Mr Jenkins. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has information about this company.

Comment by: Jean on 21st December 2021 at 18:53

I worked there from '56 to '63, when Mr Mortimer was chairman.
Mr Jenkins had been MD, His sons Norman & Lawrence also worked there.

Comment by: roger kattenhorn on 11th November 2021 at 19:30

Hi Catherine,
I believe Yeatmans registered the land and started work on their factory in 1946.

Comment by: Catherine Pearson on 1st March 2021 at 14:59

Hello. I've never tried Sunny Spread, but it seems it comes highly recommended! Does any know when the Yeatmans factory was built? I've read it was in the 1940s but I was wondered which year. Anyone know?

Comment by: David Adler on 17th January 2021 at 16:37

I was the “little boy” referred to by “Jean” in her note dated 30 September 2016.. My grandfather, Mr. Woolf, used to drive me to the factory in his Royce Royce and left me to be taken round while he attended meetings. I then took the full “tuck box” back to boarding prep school at Orwell Park where I was very popular with friends!!! However the date was wrong. He died in 1957 and therefore “Jean” must have been working in the “early 50’s” not the “early 60’s”.

Comment by: Rita on 13th December 2020 at 08:54

I remember Sunny Spread on my toast as a child in the 50s!m343q

Comment by: Anna Morrison on 30th April 2020 at 10:05

i found a jar in my garden and i just search up Yeatman and co and found this website! so glad i've found what it is as i like to know what every bottle i've found is and where it is from etc.
Thanks! :)

Comment by: Anna Morrison on 29th April 2020 at 12:18

i found a jar in my garden and i just search up Yeatman and co and found this website! so glad i've found what it is as i like to know what every bottle i've found is and where it is from etc.
Thanks! :)

Comment by: Robert Delderfield on 1st November 2019 at 15:38

My mother was the Frances Morgan (1905-1999) mentioned by Carol [5 May 2004]. She studied Art at Brighton Art School and was asked by her uncle, John Jenkins, to do some designs and illustrations for Yeatman's sweet boxes and packaging. I do not know what position Mr Jenkins held in the firm but in the early 1950s he used to experiment with sweets and their flavourings in the basement of his house Upper Norwood.

Comment by: John Plant on 20th June 2019 at 10:38

Like some of you here I’ve just unearthed a small Sunny Spread jar. When did they stop being produced?

Comment by: Ian Blackmur on 22nd September 2018 at 17:02

My Grandmother Susan Preece worked for Yeatman and I have inherited a couple of official company photos depicting about 50 mainly elderly women employees. I will endeavour to upload them to a Watford history site but if anyone would like a free scan please email onehfc@hotmail.co.uk

Comment by: Pat cormack on 14th November 2017 at 06:54

Good Morning
Would love to be able to get sunny spread honey, have a job with the current honeys on the market, I use them, but they are not what I want

Comment by: Martin Lee on 29th December 2016 at 11:04

Hi Jean, I might have been the little boy you remember in 1953(ish). The Mortimer Woolf's were distant cousins via my mother's side of my family. I was seven in 1953. I was taken round the Yeatman factory as a relative and was given a cardboard box to fill with sweets of my choice. I was also given a jar of Sunny Spread. Happy memories !

Comment by: Christine matthewson on 25th November 2016 at 21:10

I've always wondered if you can still buy sunny spread I loved it as a child what always stuck in my memory was the jar I would love to have the jar as ivalways just liked the bobbly jar as well as loved the spread I like that more than honey wish it was still made

Comment by: Ruth on 15th October 2016 at 12:04

I am a beachcomber from North Norfolk and I have just found a glass bottle base with Yeatman & Co on the base. Lovely to think it may have stored sweets years ago!

Comment by: jean on 30th September 2016 at 19:27

Hi Simon Adler,
I worked at Yeatmans in early '60s and remember taking a little boy related to Mr Mortimer around the factory to fill a box with sweets of his choice.
Mr.Mortimer, the Chairman, was highly thought of by the Sugar Girls as he made a point of talking to them when he toured the factory on his visits.

Sweet memories!

Comment by: Vince on 2nd August 2015 at 21:35

Just dug up an old jar in the garden and from the markings on the bottom, and this website, have found that it was a Sunny Spread jar.... will now make a very nice vase for putting sweet peas in.

Comment by: carol on 5th May 2014 at 21:48

hi, ive found an old box lid with bon-eta lylas assortment and a painting of 3 faies on the front by frances morgan, and on the back its stamped yeatman and co london.its a wooden lid about 11 inchs by 7, if anybody knows what they were, biscuits? and how old it is i would be greatful

Comment by: David, from essex on 12th December 2013 at 07:47

On an old site in my village of Southminster,I was rumaging
around and found a jar.I remember this jar design from my childhood,(born in 1957). I had a lovely trip down memory lane
when I researched it's background on the "net"and realised that I too,had and loved this spread. Happy days...

Comment by: Geoff on 11th October 2013 at 08:55

I think this product was last made in the early '70's, but then came in a plastic tub with a yellow lid.

Comment by: margaret on 2nd October 2013 at 21:08

just found this nostalgic site, am hooked already, wonderful memories.
I loved Sunny Spread as a child , even the best honies now available can't beat the taste of it . I, too ,wish it was still here.

Comment by: Susan Woolf on 23rd July 2013 at 15:12

Julian Woolf was my husband's grandfather. Robin Woolf lent us a big scrapbook of the history of Yeatman's. I found an empty jar from Sunny Spread and hope that I still have it. We also have a mirror reproduction of an add for puddings. 'We all love them.' We've never seen that reproduced in any form. The Museum of Brands and Packaging don't seem to have anything from Yeatman's. They don't have an index, the last time I asked. My husband, Inigo Woolf, can remember going around the factory and seeing the chocolates which were sold to Marks and Spencer. His father and uncle did not want to go into the family business.

Comment by: Jennifer Elkins on 10th March 2013 at 08:00

My grandfather (Richard James Heather known as Jim) worked for Yeatmans sweet factory when they were based on The Highway, Wapping, Stepney. He joined them after WWI, but was on the reserve list for the navy and was called-up during the Munich Crisis. He then returned to them after WWII. When the factory moved to Watford he was offered a new job there, but my grandmother did not want to leave the East End. Brenda I hope this helps you research your family, as in 1919 they were based in Tower Hamlets. Would love to know what the factory made during the war.

Comment by: Brenda Quaife on 2nd March 2013 at 17:07

My Great Grandfather worked for Yeatman & Co Ltd, (head office Denmark Street, London). I have in my possession letters from that company dated 1913 and 1919 my G Grandfather having been employed by them for 18 years - with an obvious break for WW1. As I am researching my family at the moment I would like to know a bit more about company that he worked for. Can anybody fill me in with any information please?

Comment by: JN on 27th February 2013 at 18:13

Hi - does anyone have any pictures of the factory which is now Mothercare?

Comment by: simon adler on 22nd March 2012 at 09:01

All fascinating. A E Mortimer woolf was my great grandfather and my father always remembers going around the factory as a child and choosing bits of chocolate and all sorts to take home with him. I think they were the first people to make those circular chocolates with hundreds and thousands on them beloved by pick n mix fans!

Tony if ever you didnt want your history i would be very pleased to make a donation to a charity of your choice for it as it is a bit of family history we dont have much info on.

Many thanks, simon.

Comment by: Graham on 21st March 2012 at 19:51

Found a jar complete with lid yesterday in buried in a hedgerow in West Devon. Net weight seven and one eighth ounces, price 10pence halfpenny. The lid is in a remarkable condition considering it has probably been buried for more than 50 years. My mother used a Sunny Spread jar as a sugar bowl in the early sixties.

Comment by: Bernard Perry on 21st November 2011 at 13:19

I just looked on this site out of nostalgia. As I used to live in Watford and well remember the factory I was most interested to find one of the old jar lids recently, buried in a ditch I was clearing out in Norfolk. The price on the lid was 1/-d. There was an empty jar with lid on e-bay recently for the princely sum of 99p. but no takers.

Comment by: Fran Stewart on 14th November 2011 at 16:55

I used to live right behind the factory as a child, in the prefab estate. I used to poke my hand through the wire grating and the men would give me handfuls of peanuts.

The factory had a Hooter that sounded every now and then. When I was 3 apparently I used to fall flat on my face because the hooter frightened me so much.