Frood for Lyonch

CORPORATIONS

In a restaurant in London's Olympia exhibition hall last week, British government officials sat down to a meal of "Frood," a new British product hailed as a likely dollar-getter in the export trade. But Frood turned out to be nothing more than precooked frozen food. With the U.S. frozen-food market already oversold, it looked as if Britons could not have picked a worse time to try to invade it. The only thing to give U.S. businessmen pause was that Frood's maker, J. Lyons & Co., Ltd., was not likely to back a bad bet. By consistently backing good bets, it has become the biggest restaurant company in the world.

It owns, operates and provides much of the food for 250 teashops in England, four huge restaurants (Corner Houses), London's famed Trocadero Restaurant and three of London's largest hotels (the 1,000-room Cumberland, the goo-room Regent Palace, the goo-room Strand Palace).

More impressive even than its sky-high size is Lyons' style. Lyons provides everything from buns to banquets (for thousands), with an atmosphere of elegance, and at low prices. The term "nippy", with which Lyons tagged its waitresses after a sprucing-up campaign in 1925, has become a British household word for an efficient, pleasant servant.

From Tea & Buns. The Lyons empire of edibles was starteD in 1886 by a tobacco salesman named Montague Gluckstein, who had noted the United Kingdom's lack of cheap but decent teashops. He sold his brother Isidore and brothers-in-law Alfred and Barnett Salmon on the idea of a moderate-priced catering service, brought in Joseph Lyons, who gave his name to the company, thus avoiding confusion with their tobacco company, Salmon & Gluckstein. In an era of mirrored gin palaces, those who could not afford the expensive West End restaurants readily took to the spick-&-span teashops. Lyons soon floated to success on an ocean of tea and toasted buns.

Lyons branched out in 1912 with its first Corner House near Piccadilly Circus, biggest restaurant in the world, where 4,500 could eat at once on the nine floors. This mass-market feeding was immensely aided by Chairman Isidore Salmon's penchant for bad puns and good publicity. Every Briton who read a paper became familiar with Sir Isidore's brainchild George, who was always "gone to Lyonch."

To feed the growing empire, Lyons built a 70-acre plant near London to process coffee, tea, custard powder, chocolate. Lyons, which now employs some 30,000 people, sells an average of 770,000 meals and 680,000 cups of tea and coffee a day, turns out 2,000,000 servings of ice cream, nearly 500,000 cakes. At the end of its last fiscal year, it listed total assets of -L-19,414,076, reported a net profit for the year of -L-985,425.

To Chicken Supreme & Mousse. No one man now dominates the empire. Under Chairman Harry Salmon, 65, son of the original Barnett, the 18 directors are each responsible for one part of the business. Kitchens and cooking, for example, are in charge of 41-year-old Leonard Gluckstein. He accidentally developed Frood in 1941 when he tried to can a chicken chasseur and, failing, put it in a refrigerator. When he tasted it weeks later, he knew he had something. He quietly tested Frood in Lyons restaurants and U.S. Army messhalls during the war.

Gluckstein boasted that "we have a know-how on this frozen-food business that the Americans haven't got." At least he had variety, 189 items from tomato soup to chicken supreme and mousse. And with new tea and coffee plants opening up in South Africa and Canada, Lyons could well be confident--on the strength of food, if not Frood--of becoming greater than ever.

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