Cleeves Toffees owes its origins to the entrepreneurship of one man, Thomas Henry Cleeve (pictured right). His father was an Englishman who emigrated to Canada and married an Irish woman of Huguenot background.

Thomas was born in Quebec in 1844. He was reared and educated in Canada and came to Limerick, Ireland in 1864 to assist his uncle, Mr Ben Journeaux, who had a large agricultural machinery business there called J.P. Evans and Company. Thomas quickly took to business affairs, his responsibilities within his uncle’s business kept increasing and he saw numerous opportunities presented by the great agricultural resources of Limerick and surrounding counties. He was a restless individual, always eager to get ahead and soon he started his own business having persuaded his three brothers to join him in Limerick.

He acquired a mill and turned it to an enterprise baling hay into compact sized bales that were easy to handle and transport and very soon he was exporting hay to England. However it was the dairy industry where Thomas came to make his mark. Again Thomas acquired a mill that had been used for textiles and then flour but which he rearranged for the manufacture of butter and other dairy products.
His brothers were instrumental in establishing a large number of creameries throughout Munster and their output was channelled into a new factory which Thomas opened in 1889 and which he situated across the road from his mill.

Within 10 years, the Cleeves Brothers operated the largest milk processing factory in Ireland.
	But ahead of his time, Thomas saw the advantage of adding value as well as forward integration to his operations and so aside from processing the cream and skim milk, the factory branched out into the manufacture of butter, chocolate, tinned condensed milk, cream, boxes and most importantly for our business, sweets and particularly toffee.

Page 1 | Page 2