Our Story

HP, the UK's no. 1 brown sauce, has been adding oomph to your favourite dishes since 1903. The original recipe was invented and developed in 1899 by Frederick Gibson Garton, a grocer from Nottingham. Garton sold the recipe for the sum of £150 to settle a debt with Edwin Samson Moore, the founder of the Midlands Vinegar Company, who launched what we know and love today as HP Sauce.

A vintage HP Sauce ad depicting a bottle of sauce on a loaded dinner table.

If you didn't know, HP stands for 'Houses of Parliament' as it was rumoured the sauce was used in the restaurant there, back at the turn of the 20th century. Since then, the sauce has become so popular that a whopping 28 million bottles are consumed in a year if the bottles were stacked on top of each other, they would reach the same height as 6,189 Houses of Parliament!

classic ad image of HP sauce pouring over a sandwich.

As the popularity of HP has grown, so has the range; the first newcomer was HP Fruity back in 1969. A little bit milder than the traditional HP Sauce, the subtly blended fruits and spices give a bit more tang – so are perfect on all your HP favourites, plus chicken.

A classic HP Sauce ad depicting HP sauce on chips.

More recently, the Brown Sauce range has seen the addition of HP Reduced Salt and Sugar, with 25% less salt and 30% less sugar, for the more health conscious HP lovers. The launch of HP BBQ and HP Pepper sees HP apply over 100 years of sauce-making expertise to provide a range of sauces to suit everyone's taste.

Three classic HP Sauce bottles on a yellow background.