Gulam K Noon

Sir Gulam K. Noon, MBE, is a British businessman of Indian origin. He is the founder of Noon Products, a large supplier of ready-made curries to supermarkets. In 1999 Noon Products was bought by WT Foods for £50 million (£35 million in cash and 12 million shares, now worth £6.8 million).[1] In the Sunday Times Rich List 2006 he was placed in 888th position with an estimated fortune of £65 million.

Noon has served on the Board of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry and was its President for a two-year term until 2003. He has also been appointed to the Board of Transport for London.

Business Ethics

In 1998 it was reported that workers had been refused recognition of the GMB union at the Noon plant in Southall, despite the fact that 90% had joined up. It was also reported that many of the workers worked 6 days a week at £3.50 an hour and that managers had offered inducements and tried to stir up racial differences in an effort to persuade workers to leave the union.

Cash for Peerages

In March 2006 he came to wider notice as one of the businessmen embroiled in the "Cash for Peerages" scandal when it emerged that he had loaned £250,000 to the Labour Party. A former Tory supporter, he is one of the 58 business leaders who wrote to the Times in May 2001 in support of the Labour Party. Noon was one of the four businessmen (the others being Sir David Garrard, Barry Townsley, Chai Patel) who between them had lent Labour a total of more than £4.25m. All were later nominated for peerages by Tony Blair without the loans being declared.[2]

He was a declared backer of the former Britain in Europe group, a pro-European pressure group.

Related Articles

• David Cracknell, Cash for honours: The end game, The Times, March 11, 2007
• Biography at Noon Products website
• Summary of Desert Island Discs appearance
• Humayun Hussain, Ready made sauces make only ersatz curries, The Guardian, May 30, 2007