The Early Years
Dowson Food Machinery can trace its ancestry back to 1986 when they started a company to create the perfect bread slicing blade. Manufactured to BS EN IOS 9002 standards, Dowson Blades are still considered by many to be the best quality slicer blades available in the market, even today.
Grand Ideas
In 1982 John Murgatroyd, Dowson Blades Direct and former Rolls-Royce engineer, left Dowson Blades to form Dowson Food Machinery Ltd. Murgatroyd brought a high-precision mindset to the bakery industry. He initially worked on manufacturing slicer frames and comb plates, but his “never over-engineer” philosophy quickly led to the creation of bespoke bread baggers and slicers that became industry benchmarks for reliability.
Growth and the “Legacy of Innovation”
By the 1990s and 2000s, Dowson had secured a massive footprint in the UK, eventually claiming around 70% of the UK market share for bread slicing and bagging.
Their machinery became a staple for major brands like Warburtons, Hovis, Greggs, and Premier Foods.
Warburtons even honored John’s impact with a commemorative plaque on one of their machines, citing his “legacy of innovation.”
Expansion and Modernisation
The mid-2010s marked a period of significant scaling.
Dowson moved from its original Bingley site to a massive 48,000 sq ft facility in Keighley, West Yorkshire. This tripled their production space.
By acquiring JBS (Peterborough), Dowson expanded its repertoire beyond slicers into bun and roll lines, flatbread equipment, and “Rollmaster” technology.
Today, Dowson still manufactures roughly 90% of its components in-house using advanced CNC machining. This allows them to maintain the high quality-control standards John Murgatroyd originally envisioned.
Dowson Today, Sustainability and Beyond
Dowson equipment is favoured by high volume, industrial bakeries for the reliability and longevity of its bakery equipment and now exports to the USA, Russia, South Africa, and Australia.
As energy efficiency and carbon offset challenges the bakery industry, Dowson have introduced their latest “Eff1” standard motors and intelligent servo controls for energy efficiency and their new Paper Bagger offers a realistic solution for using paper bags on a production line to assist with carbon offset.
As a final word and testimony to their build quality, many Dowsons machines from the 1980s are still in daily use, and the company now offers extensive refurbishment services to extend equipment life even further.
So here at Dowson, we are looking forward to being a preferred supplier to the industrial bakery market, no matter where that journey takes us.
