“Now bring us some figgy pudding, and bring it right here!” demands the 16th-century Christmas carol “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” Tastes had changed by the Victorian era; they preferred plum pudding to fig pudding, though the latter was still easily available. Traditional British figgy pudding, dating back to medieval times, is a dense, moist dessert made with figs, suet, and spices, either steamed or boiled.
Richardson and Robbins of Dover emerged against this backdrop of changing tastes to capitalize on the growing popularity of plum pudding. Founded in 1856, the cannery was the first in the state of Delaware, and a pioneer in the American food packaging industry. Alden B. Richardson (1825-1894) was born in South Reading, Massachusetts, and as a youth apprenticed himself to a tinmaker at New Bedford. On completion of his 7-year apprenticeship, Richardson migrated south to Wilmington, Delaware, where in 1849 he established his own stove and tinware business. Two years later, Richardson moved his business to Camden, and about 1853, he finally settled at Dover. Here he conducted his business in stoves and tinware from a building at the intersection of Bradford and Loockerman Streets.
Sensing the potential for success in the Dover enterprise, Richardson hired a journeyman tinsmith from Smyrna, one James Washington Robbins (1831-1876), to assist him. For more than three-quarters of a century, the company supplied hundreds of thousands of American families with canned plum pudding (and fig pudding as well, though they advertised it less heavily).
In an ironic twist, English households often preferred the imported R&R dessert product because their label had earned an international reputation for quality.
Victorian plum pudding, despite the name, typically contains no actual plums. The mixture includes raisins, currants, and other dried fruits, together with suet and spices, then steamed for a rich, festive treat. Traditional plum pudding recipes require at least a month of aging. Hidden within some traditional pudding, you might find a small trinket or coin. Finding it meant good luck or that you were the next to get married. The tradition of setting the plum pudding on fire before serving, known to the French as “flambé,” is called by the British “wassailing the pudding.” The flames symbolize the warmth of good wishes and are meant to bring prosperity in the coming year.
American fruitcake and plum pudding are richly filled with similar ingredients. But plum pudding tends to have a moister, stickier texture, whereas fruitcake consistency is firmer and more cake-like.
A.B. Richardson and James W. Robbins didn’t start out with the aim of taking the global plum pudding market by storm. As Emerson Wilson recounted in the Morning News (Wilmington, DE) in 1972, the company had humble beginnings in Dover. Before transitioning to the food packaging industry, the company was known for manufacturing stoves and related products, including stovepipes. This early expertise in metalwork and manufacturing laid the foundation for their later success. To demonstrate their products’ cooking capabilities, “they had exhibitions, canning peaches and berries and then selling the canned products to their stove customers.” The venture proved so popular that Richardson and Robbins soon focused solely on expanding their food processing operation.
The company had begun offering plum pudding by 1877, canned from September to November, for both the domestic market and for European export as a gourmet item. “Messrs. R. & R.’s orders for plum pudding have been so sizable that they must put up extra-large quantities to supply the growing demand,” reported The Daily Republican (Wilmington, DE) in November 1878. “Two large orders were received from London this week for English plum pudding manufactured in America.”
The popularity of the American-made pudding ruffled some feathers across the pond. The Times Union (London) noted in 1881 that “England has been compelled to see … American manufactures of many kinds finding favor in our ‘tight little island,’ but there is a point where patience ceases to be a virtue, and that point was reached when an ingenious Yankee began to send over canned English plum pudding. The product was promptly declared contraband by the authorities and forbidden to enter duty free.”
Unfazed, Richardson & Robbins continued ramping up production. The News Journal reported in October 1887 that the company “received a few days ago a carload of raisins direct from Southern California.” West Coast growers had access to a wide range of grape varieties, including those particularly well-suited for canning, such as the ‘Thompson Seedless.’ The grape, also known as the Sultana, was first cultivated in the United States in the early 1870s. This variety may not have been as readily available or well-adapted to the eastern growing conditions. The widespread industrial production of seedless grapes did not begin in earnest till the 1920s, starting in California.
Why were R&R’s Christmas pudding sales outpacing their English counterparts? “About five years ago Richardson & Robbins, the well-known Delaware packers, began putting up a plum pudding which has almost driven the English make out of the market,” began an 1888 article in the New York World. “It is sold at about half the price… Before it was put up in this country the New York firm Acker, Merrell & Condit imported seventy-five to 160 English barrels at a time, each barrel containing six dozen assorted cans of one, two, three and four pounds. Now they import only five or ten barrels at a time.” The article went on to praise the quality, noting that “The care which R&R takes in putting up all their goods ensures absolute cleanliness in their plum pudding.” The firm employed state-of-the-art methods to ensure their products were safe, tasty and long-lasting.
Preparing the massive quantities of plum ‘duff’ was no small feat. “Richardson & Robbins have commenced picking and seeding raisins for their celebrated plum pudding,” the Smyrna Times reported in October 1889. “Society ladies of the town are employed and earn from $3.50 to $4 per day. It is said that the firm has paid out $5,000 in one season for seeding raisins alone.”
The company’s reach extended far beyond British and American consumers. “A carload of plum pudding, ordered by the United States government, was shipped to Manila” to feed American troops fighting in the Spanish-American War, noted the Smyrna Times in October 1900.
“The plum pudding of the Richardson and Robbins Dover brand is to be found the pièce de résistance in every country where Christmas is observed,” the News Journal reported in August 1928. “Even at Buckingham Palace and Balmoral. Despite the fact that England is the birthplace of the delicious Christmas dessert, the King and Queen of Great Britain feast annually on the same pudding that tops the Christmas dinner in 100,000 American homes.”
During World War II, Richardson & Robbins again stepped up to boost troop morale. “Twenty cases of plum pudding are en route to the soldiers of Delaware’s National Guard, the 198th Coast Artillery, anti-aircraft, stationed in the southwest Pacific,” the News Journal reported in November 1942. “The pudding for the Christmas dinner of the regiment is a gift from Richardson and Robbins.” A follow-up article in March 1943 confirmed the shipment’s arrival, with the commanding officer Colonel Schulz proudly advising “that the shipment of pudding has arrived safely in our hands—20 full cases—all of which will be consumed by the regiment this coming Sunday, Feb. 21st.”
The company’s renown reached the highest levels of American government as well. In October 1951, Delaware Senator J. Allen Frear presented his Senate colleagues, President Truman, Vice-President Barkley, and others with “a generous sized carton of plum pudding and fig pudding” from Richardson & Robbins as a going-away present. “The Senator told his colleagues that the Dover company had been producing fine products for over a century, and that Richardson & Robbins Plum Pudding is a special favorite on American dinner tables during the Christmas holiday season,” according to the News Journal.
After more than a century of family ownership, Richardson & Robbins was acquired in 1959 by the William Underwood Company of Watertown, Massachusetts. The News Journal hailed it as “an ideal marriage of two of the nation’s pioneer quality food producers,” noting the ubiquity of both Underwood’s deviled ham and R&R’s iconic plum pudding and boned chicken.
From a serendipitous start as a stove company’s marketing ploy to becoming a global culinary icon, Richardson & Robbins’ rise is a quintessential American success story. The company’s beloved plum pudding brought a taste of Victorian England to Christmas celebrations from Dover to London and beyond for generations.
My grandfather came over from Germany to Philadelphia. Then to Dover DE. Worked at the Dover Richardson & Robbin’s plant .