About us

In 1979 Gordon, Gwynneth and Ian Rhodes set up Gordon Rhodes & Son in Idle, Bradford selling seasonings and mixes.

In 1981 Gordon Rhodes & Son Ltd was created to sell in the North East of England, followed by Dalesman (Fine Food Ingredients) Ltd in 1985 to sell in the North West. In the same year we registered ‘Dalesman’ as our Trade Mark.

In 1989 we bought our first factory at Buttershaw, Bradford and our first mixing machine. From a small start we now only sell our own blends of Dalesman seasonings and mixes.

In 1991 a fourth partner joined, Christine Rhodes, who helped to start the computer system, which was then quite sophisticated in handling sales, purchases, recipes and production. In the same year the Company bought its second mixing machine at the same time as it upgraded the warehouse and manufacturing area. In 1992 a Quality Control laboratory, metal detection room and separate packing area were created.

In 1997 a new computer system was installed to compliment the new investment in a sophisticated packing machine, as well as a major upgrade to the old system. The year 2000 marks the advancement of a further upgrade to the computer system to incorporate bar coding to our raw materials, giving excellent traceability and in March 2000 we were delighted to announce the purchase of the majority of shares in Prestige Supplies Ltd, and welcome our new colleagues to our ‘Family’. The partners of Gordon Rhodes & Son now wholly own Prestige Supplies Limited.

The Office Manager, Technical Manager and the General Manager were promoted to form a Senior Management Team in 2001.

 In 2002 Gordon & Gwynneth Rhodes retired as partners from Gordon Rhodes & Son and Gordon resigned his directorships of Gordon Rhodes & Son Limited and Dalesman (Fine Food Ingredients) Limited.

James Rhodes took over the directorships making him the third generation in the business. The Company is still a family business with Ian, Christine, James, Ben and Charlotte all carrying out different roles within the company.

QuidCalc.Com was developed in September 2003 by the Senior Management team to help our customers to meet the requirements of new labelling regulations. QuidCalc.com is a self-sufficient web site which can be accessed by the customer at any time via the Internet.  

Since 1979 our Company has moved premises four times to accommodate the rapid increase in staff numbers and machinery to cope with the increase in orders. Gordon Rhodes & Son is now based in our brand new factory which was purpose built at Eurocam Technology Park during 2003/2004.

In 2005 we were succesful in gaining British Retail Consortium (BRC) certification, which is a prestigious award in the retail industry. BRC expect us to work to a particular standard, which is reviewed on an annual basis.

The Dalesman group continues to develop and grow by investing in people, new technology and state of the art machinery.

We have expanded our business on outstanding customer service, the ability to deliver quality products at competitive prices, superb service, honesty and integrity.