General Information

Redco Foods Inc. was formed in March of 1985 by John G Edwards. Edwards was previously President and CEO of Brook Bond Foods (Red Rose Tea) in the United States. Edwards was joined in November of that same year by John G Rigg, previously President and CEO of Brooke Bond Canada and former Chairman of Brooke Bond in the USA. Redco Foods acquired Brooke Bond’s US tea business from Unilever in 1985 under a perpetual royalty arrangement, and began operations to sell and distribute Red Rose Tea in the United States.

At the Company's inception, the acquired Brooke Bond U.S. tea operations were comprised primarily of a sales and distribution organization which marketed Red Rose tea on behalf of its sister Canadian Company. The Canadian Company was responsible for all production operations and also provided a variety of administrative services including data processing, systems, product development and quality control.

By mid-1987 the company's prime concern was to find a long-term solution to its lack of production and distribution facilities. The dilemma was compounded by the fact that Red Rose volume was judged insufficient to support a cost effective production operation.

Redco acquired Salada Foods Inc. in June of 1988 from cereal maker Kellogg. This acquisition included dessert brand "Junket." Salada held its tea and dessert packing operations in Little Falls, NY for its brands Salada Tea and Junket Desserts. After adding these two brands to the company (Salada and Junket), Redco Foods began producing Red Rose tea for the US market at the same facility in Little Falls, NY.

Today Redco is still called Redco Foods, Inc., and still manufactures and distributes all three brands from the Little Falls New York Operations Facility. Brands include Salada and Red Rose tea as well as Junket brand dessert mixes.  Redco is the Hot Tea licensee for Snapple, and distributes both Pompadour tea and Garden of the Andes tea.  Customers include all major supermarket chains, specialty and natural food distributors, and northeastern foodservice distributors.  Redco maintains a network of Regional Sales managers and brokers in local markets. All manufacturing occurs in Little Falls, NY with Marketing and some Sales offices based in Windsor, CT.