We begin life as an agricultural seed, grain and pea merchant at 52 High Street, Hull.

The business was set up by George Gilchrist Johnston and Richard Hunter Jeff who, in the early days, specialised in selling peas to pigeon fanciers. However, George and Richard soon noticed that miners kept canaries too and spotted an opportunity to supply canary seed and millet seed.

In 1921, after 41 fantastic years of service, George Gilchrist Johnston retired and was succeeded by Alan, the second generation of Johnstons to run the business and the grandfather of our current managing director, Richard.

Richard Hunter Jeff had already retired before this and with no family interest in the business, he sold his shares to George, ending the involvement of the Jeff family in the business.

Ian Johnston, the grandson of George, served in the Royal Navy during WWII but was demobbed in 1947 and joined the family business. His uncle, Howard, also worked for us and they ran the company together.

Under Ian’s leadership, we achieved a number of industry firsts. For example, in the mid-70s, we became the first company to ship peas and canary seed in bulk containers from New Zealand and Australia.

As part of Ian’s drive for innovation, we also invested in machinery to ensure our bird feed blends were the cleanest on the market.

In 2001, nearly 60 years after our High Street premises was bombed, tragedy befell us again. A huge fire tore through the offices and mills, all but destroying them. Luckily, however, the 1952 rebuild had been done to such a high standard, including a safe room for important documents, that everything we needed to continue trading survived.

And continue trading we did! By the afternoon of the day the fire broke out, we’d found temporary premises in Hessle and were up and running.

Production began again just three days after the fire, an unbelievable achievement given the severity of the situation, and one that will always remain testament to the hard work and loyalty of the Johnston & Jeff team.

In 2007, we began a long-term relationship with The Parrot Society UK to help to resurrect their flagship show, the National Exhibition Show.

The show closed down in 2001 when the Foot and Mouth epidemic stopped the movement of livestock and we wanted help breathe new life into the event with sponsorship deal. We’re immensely proud to say it continues to thrive to this day.

2020 saw us celebrate a phenomenal 140 years of business! What an achievement, something we’re all incredibly proud of.

How did we celebrate? By investing £1m in expanding our factory and offices, including two new computer-controlled multi-head weighers, a new bagging line, and a palletising robot which loads sacks on to pallets.