Henry Dixon began his business in 1885 making sweets and toffees, his signature sweets, Mint Rock and Cherry Balsams are still made today. The firm grew in the early 20th Century making quality hard boiled confectionery and became one of the major sugar confectionery manufacturers in Sheffield and Yorkshire. Henry’s son, also named Henry, would continue the proud name and traditions on in the middle of the 20th Century.
In 1927 the MacDonald family also started making sweets in Bents Green, Sheffield and sold their popular fruit sweets throughout Yorkshire too. Maxons (Mac and sons) grew to become famous for its Yorkshire Mixture, Pear Drops, Winter Mixture and its variety of old fashioned boiled sweets.
Ralph Pitchfork, meanwhile, was growing his own firm, Ralph Pitchfork ltd, which was a wholesale confectioner stocking all the confectionery products you can imagine from all the big, and small, confectioners.
All 3 business would come together in the 1950s and also take on the Jesmona Black Bullets to form the company that we see as Maxons today under the chairmanship of Ralph Pitchfork and then his son Roger. Today it is still based in Sheffield and run by the 3rd generation of Pitchforks with brothers, and Ralph’s grandsons, Chris and Richard as joint Managing Directors.
We still keep to the traditions of our founders to this day in using only the finest ingredients to make the highest quality confectionery. Taste is key and we pride ourselves in our great tasting, full of flavour products. We also hold our customer service to the highest of standards, a call to the office or an email will be answered happily by one of the 2 owners with questions answered and problems solved by those making the decisions.
Maxons 