Founder of bakery chain, big Laurel County employer, dies

<p>The founder of a London-based bakery chain, one of Laurel Countys largest employers, has died of complications from a stroke.</p><p>Nelson L. Griffin Sr., former owner of Griffin Pie Co., died Monday at Marymount Hospital in London. He was 82.</p><p>Griffin began the company in 1949 in Charleston, W.Va.</p><p>Griffin Pie Co. had bakeries in West Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi, as well as Kentucky. Griffin opened a bakery in London in 1952 and moved business headquarters there in 1971. Griffin Pie Co. at one time employed about 450 people in Laurel County. The business was sold in 1983 to Flowers Industries.</p><p>When he first opened, it was just a small shop bakery. They started making fried pies, you know, the old-fashioned fried pies, said his daughter, Betsy Freeman of Spartanburg, S.C.</p><p>Griffin Pie Co. eventually made many types of sweet goods, including honey buns, cream horns, doughnuts and a wide variety of pies. The company sold its products to other wholesale bakeries that did not make sweet goods and to grocery stores.</p><p>Griffin also was a philanthropist. When Hurricane Hugo hit in 1989, Griffin bought a tractor-trailer load of merchandise from the bakery he formerly owned and sent it to hurricane victims in South Carolina.</p>