INTERNATIONAL FOOD group Nestlé is asking for help in plugging gaps in its archive collection in time for the 150th anniversary of Henry Isaac Rowntree beginning his world-famous chocolate empire.
Alex Hutchinson, Nestlé’s heritage assistant, has already tracked down “hundreds of reels” of old film, but wants to find remaining lost footage so it can be made available to the public, and protected.
According to The Press newspaper in York, she is particularly looking for a collection of time-and-motion films from the 1920s and 1930s, believed to have been taken away from the factory for safekeeping in the 1980s or 1990s, as well as the full-length version of a film made about the Yorkshire-based Dunollie rest home in 1947, and some advertising footage that was made for release in cinemas.
Miss Hutchinson said: “I know that these films are out there. If we can find them now we may be able to save them for the future and share them with new audiences.”
Nestlé has been working closely with the Yorkshire Film Archive in recent years to make much of its old material available online. Recent additions include a film from 1932 that had been thought lost until Miss Hutchinson realised it had actually been mis-filed at the British Film Institute.
Other finds include a 1958 film about fruit gums and their ingredients that was uncovered in an old scaffolding store, and a collection of more than 300 reels of film, some dating back to the 1920s, that was uncovered in a wall cavity in Nestlé’s head office in Croydon.
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