Honey Bun Day Celebration – A Sweet History

Honey Bun Day , London’s sweetest day of the year, will take place in downtown London on Saturday, October 19, honoring the thousands of jobs the honey bun has supported since the 1950s. Events include a Honey Bun Brunch and Makers Market at the London Community Center, the “Taste the Buns” Honey Bun Food Challenge, live music, Food Trucks featuring various foods and sweet treats made with the Honey Bun, and more at Town Center Park.

The highlight will be a record attempt for the most people eating a honey bun simultaneously at 7 p.m. at Town Center Park. One lucky participant from the record attempt will win $1,000! (For event details, visit honeybunday.com.)

Flowers Bakery of London, a division of Flowers Foods, is a key presenter of the event, along with London Tourism & Parks and London Downtown. WellCare of Kentucky is the event’s sponsor.

A Sweet History

Flowers employs over 600 people at its Fourth Street bakery, producing nearly 3 million pounds of honey buns, donuts, donut sticks, and fried pies weekly across nine production lines. The bakery’s three honey bun lines alone can produce almost 60,000 honey buns per hour, or about 10 million weekly. Its four donut lines produce approximately 336,000 donuts per hour at full capacity.

If every baked item produced in a week were laid end-to-end, the line of treats would stretch 2,559 miles—more than the distance from Jacksonville, Florida, to San Diego, California.

The sweet aroma of baked goods from Flowers often envelops downtown London, connecting the community to a story dating back to the 1920s and the Griffin family.

Louis Griffin, a restaurant owner in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, had his mother, Mary Ellen Griffin, bake small pies for his menu. The pies became so popular that in 1926, Griffin sold his restaurant, moved to Greensboro, and began baking pies at home to sell to local restaurants. In 1929, Griffin Baking Company was born.

Louis’ son, Nelson Griffin, later joined the company, growing its sales of fried pies. After World War II, Nelson started his own bakery in Charleston, West Virginia, making pies and other items.

“My dad was a builder and a dreamer. He liked going into new territories and developing new products,” said Nelson Griffin Jr. of London.

Nelson’s brother-in-law, William Brooks, joined in 1951, and the bakery expanded to seven cities across six states, including the Griffin Pie Company in London in 1953.

“One of my dad’s talents was surrounding himself with good people,” Nelson Jr. said. “I couldn’t name all the people who were instrumental in our success.”

Tragedy struck in 1971 when a fire destroyed the bakery on South U.S. 25 near Laurel County High School. Bob Kidd, Brooks’ son-in-law, had recently joined the company and was moving to London when he arrived to find the bakery still smoldering. Despite the fire, the family completed their move to London.

The Laurel County community rallied around Griffin Pie, with local businessmen contributing $25,000 and a small business loan enabling the company to buy the vacant Sterling Hardware building on Fourth Street. This allowed them to consolidate all their bakeries into one location.

“What felt like the end of the world when we arrived actually turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to Griffin Pie,” Kidd said. “It brought everyone together under one roof, and the best years of the company followed.”

By 1983, when Flowers Industries acquired Griffin Pie Company, it was distributing honey buns and other products to about 30 states. Both Kidd and Nelson Griffin Jr. agree that Griffin Pie and the London community grew together.

“The relationship with the people of London made our company successful,” Kidd said. “The work ethic in Laurel County is phenomenal, and the company created opportunities for people’s lives to improve.”

As for the creation of the first honey bun, legend credits Louis Griffin’s brother, Howard Griffin, with developing the treat, which has been a best-seller ever since.

“In the early 1950s, they were making cinnamon rolls,” Nelson Jr. said. “From that, he added honey to the recipe and created the first commercial honey bun.”

Today, Flowers Foods operates bakeries in 45 states, employing around 9,300 people and generating $5.1 billion in annual sales, making it the second-largest packaged bakery producer in the U.S.

The sweet history of the honey bun, the families behind it, and the thousands of people employed at the bakery over the decades will be celebrated in London on Saturday, October 19.

Here’s the schedule of events;

Honey Bun Day Saturday, October 19

London Community Center

9am-1pm Honeybun Brunch

9am-4pm Maker’s Market- Vendors at the adjacent Farmers Market will be open until 1p.m.

Town Center Park

4pm Live Music & Food Trucks

5pm Taste the Buns Challenge – Open to Food Trucks, Restaurants, Caterers.

7pm Record Attempt – Grand Prize $1,000

Main Street- from 5th to 9th Street

3pm Main Street Closes from 4th Street – 9 Street

5pm CP Auto Invasion Truck Show