Solway  was established in Corby by  three directors, John Bladon, John Bennett and Neil Adnitt.  All three directors had long established careers within the chilled food industry.  In the late 1980’s they saw a gap in the market, and built Factory 1 to manufacture Salads. At this time manufacturing was aimed towards process and shelf life.  Solway established itself with a philosophy of speed to store with same day production and with a guarantee of quality.  A year later in 1989, they ventured into Sandwich production. 

In 1990, after further expansion into Coleslaw, Solway  achieved  £1 million turnover for the first time.  The first Snack Salad was developed and produced in 1991 and the year after a second factory was built to specialise in Sandwiches.

By 1994, turnover had increased to £20 million and  Napier Brown Holdings replaced the original institutional investors.  1995 and 1996 were extremely busy years with a third factory built to manufacture Bowl and Snack Salads.  Over the next couple of years, the company invested heavily in the latest equipment, installing pasta cooking and chargrilling facilities and the UK’s first automated Sandwich production line.  This left them with three factories on the Corby site which was, by now, fast running out of space.