Jacob's

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.

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 2014, United Biscuits was acquired by Pladis, a subsidiary of the Istanbul-based conglomerate, Yıldız Holding.

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.

Industrial relations

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.

Toppable crackers

Cream crackers

Biscuits For Cheese

Savoury Favourites

Flatbreads