The great grace taste

GraceKennedy CEO Don Wehby, alongside event host Simone Clarke-Cooper, officially launches the GK100 anniversary celebrations in January 2022, via a live virtual launch attended by some 500+ GraceKennedy staff members from across the globe

Grace, Kennedy & Company Limited, the parent company of Grace Foods, was famously founded on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1922 by Dr. John J. Grace and Mr. Fred William Kennedy.

Prior to the founding of GraceKennedy, these two gentlemen worked for Grace Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of W.R. Grace & Company of New York City, New York.

In the United States a brief post-war economic boom which lasted from 1918 until the summer of 1921 was followed by an equally brief but sharp recession. Insolvencies tripled between 1919 and 1921. W.R. Grace and Co. of New York felt the pressure and decided to divest its Jamaican branch. Dr. John Grace realized that Grace Limited in Jamaica was not itself a failing concern but that it was being divested in order to relieve the pressure from the parent company in New York. He decided to keep it. Fred W. Kennedy, who recommended that James Moss-Solomon, then with United Fruit Company, be invited to join the new firm as Accountant, backed his decision. Like Kennedy, Moss-Solomon was of Jamaican stock.

Thus on February 14, 1922, St. Valentine’s Day and Fred William Kennedy’s Mother’s Birthday, a new firm, Grace, Kennedy & Company Limited was launched on the successes of its predecessor.