I remember Kunzle cakes, simply because they were the best cakes available in Birmingham. There were plenty of ordinary bread shops that sold ordinary cakes that you could buy in any cake shop, in any city and then there were Kunzle cakes! My mum loved them and often, when she could afford it, brought them home for tea. It was a sad day for cake enthusiasts when the name and product disappeared. There is even a web site devoted to bringing back the Kunzle Showboat range!

Christian Kunzle was a Swiss chef, who for a time worked at the House of Commons. He started his company in the early twenties, initially opening restaurants in Birmingham. The success of the restaurants were such that he also opened a factory to supply them with his own cakes and pastries. Later on the factory expanded its production to supply other retail outlets. Kunzle were also confectioners and made high quality boxed chocolates.

The company was very much a family affair and was later carried on by his son Ernest and grandson George, becoming a nationwide supplier of top quality cakes and pastries.

The restaurants were eventually sold but the factory continued to expand moving to Garret's Green in 1960. By 1970 the factory was employing seven hundred staff.

The companies Head Office was in Five Ways, Birmingham.
Kunzle called their best selling fancy range, 'Showboat'. These delicious cakes were the only chocolate-shell type produced in the UK. They were filled with sponge cake and topped with butter cream and finished with piping and hand decoration. The cakes were packed in boxes of six and individually wrapped. Showboat cakes were Kunzle's biggest selling line and they made a staggering 40,000 every week at the Garrets Green factory.

The Garrets Green factory also produced Cakelets and Home Made Crackle Cakes, Meringues, Fondant Fancies and Macaroons. The factory also produced own label products for British Home Stores, Marks & Spencer and Tesco.

In 1964 the familiar aquisition road began with Kunzle being taken over by Fullers. Fullers transferring their bakery from London to the Kunzle bakery at Garretts Green.In June 1968 Fuller/Kunzle was acquired by Scribbans-Kemp (Scribbans was also a well known Birmingham name with bread shops within the city).

To give an idea of the importance of Kunzle, in 1965 the Scottish company, Golden Casket, acquired the Kunzle exclusive distribution rights for Scotland. In the year previously the turnover for Kunzle cakes was only £10,000 per year but within 18 months of acquiring the distributorship the turnover increased to over £200K. By 1968 this had increased to £400K a year.

In November 1968 Lyons bought the bakery side of Scribbans-Kemp