Bengers Foods was established at Otter Works, Strangeways, in the 1790s as Mottershead and Company of Manchester. In the mid-19th century the firm began producing a food supplement for soldiers returning from the Crimean War. The business was acquired in 1870 by a pair of chemists: Frederick Baden Benger and Standen Paine. In 1891 the firm became a limited liability company under the name F B Benger & Co. Ltd. It was renamed as Benger’s Food Ltd in 1903 and finally became Bengers Ltd in 1939. During this time production expanded to include foods for infants and young children, and foods for the elderly. The company exported to countries in the British Empire (later the Commonwealth). The firm remained in Manchester until 1938, when it moved to purpose-built premises in Holmes Chapel, Cheshire. By this period the company had diversified from the production of food supplements to a wider range of pharmaceutical products, which were exported around the world and required bigger premises, with state of the art laboratories. Bengers Foods was taken over by Fisons Ltd in 1947, and production further expanded to include gardening products. At the time of the acquisition the company employed 350 people in Holmes Chapel. Fisons Ltd were themselves bought by Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, Inc. in 1995. Rhone-Poulenc was wholly owned by France's chemical giant Rhone-Poulenc S.A., which became Sanofi-Aventi (later Sanofi).