Lloyd Maunder Ltd. is part of 2 Sisters Food Group. It produces 500,000 chicken a week which are retailed nationally through major supermarkets.
All Lloyd Maunder's chicken are grown on small family-run farms in the West Country. Sixty per cent of the company's output is its own Devonshire Red breed of chicken, which is reared in three higher welfare systems – organic and free range, plus corn fed which is reared indoors to RSPCA Freedom Food standards.
Lloyd Maunder Ltd. has been a pioneering force in the South West food industry since it was founded in 1898 by Mr Lloyd Maunder, when he took over the management of his father's butchers shop.
In 1957 the company introduced commercial chicken production to the UK, making it available and affordable for the first time through the ‘new fangled' supermarkets.
The Devonshire Red breed is another innovation, developed exclusively for Lloyd Maunder and introduced in 2003 as a slow growing breed of chicken that would be suited to the higher welfare rearing systems.
More than 650 people are employed at the processing plant at Willand, near Cullompton in Devon.
In January 2008 Lloyd Maunder Ltd. was acquired by 2 Sisters Food Group, a major European food company based in the Midlands. As a result, £5.5 million is being invested in the South West operation to increase production to more than 710,000 chicken per week and establish it as a centre of excellence for specialist poultry production.