And the man behind the brand is...
William Underwood
In 1819, at the age of 32, William Underwood walked from New Orleans to Boston. He had landed in Louisiana two years earlier, hoping to parlay his experience as a tinsmith in England into a canner in America. After New Orleans did not work out, he set off for Boston. On foot. This sort of determination would serve him well in his attempts to establish the new industry of canning in America.
Food preservation began during the Napoleonic Wars when French foodmakers discovered heated food could be sealed in jars and safely eaten later on the battlefield. Commercial applications quickly sprang up in France and England, and, eventually, the United States.
Once in Boston Underwood joined up with his brother James. Here they started preserving local delicacies such as cranberries and broiled lobsters in a shop on Russia Wharf. He sold tomatoes, an exotic food in 1820s America, that he grew from English seeds in his yard. The early Underwood products were processed totally in glass bottles. By all accounts the Underwood cannery was America’s first successful canning operation.
William Underwood discovered a prejudice against American canned goods in his new country and was forced to ship most of his food to South American and Far East markets. He overcame this resistence by stamping “England” on his containers and gradually he built his American market. Canning was expensive and time-consuming but as developments in machine cutting and soldering advanced cans became the main vehicle for Underwood’s processed foods. Underwood canned meats went to sea and travelled west with the wagon trains and eventually to battle in the Civil War.
The canning business was run by Underwoods for almost 100 years after William Underwood’s death during the Civil War. In 1868, three years after the founder’s death, Henry Oliver Underwood introduced the “red devil” trademark for the company’s line of deviled meat spreads. The devil, a heavily-muscled, horned demon, was assigned No. 82 (the list went past one million in 1974). It is the oldest food trademark in the United States.
Showing posts with label Meat Brands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meat Brands. Show all posts
February 7, 2007
Tyson
And the man behind the brand is...
John Tyson
During the Depression John Tyson sold his first chickens to pull his family through the tough times. In 1935, Tyson purchased 50 “springer” chickens and hauled them from his farm in Arkansas to Chicago to sell at profit. Two years later, he christened his business Tyson Feed & Hatchery.
The company prospered by buying and selling chickens but Tyson was constantly needing to monitor the quality of the chickens he bartered. Gradually he became involved in raising his own chickens. In 1947, the company was incorporated.
In 1952 Tyson’s son Don joined the company as head of operations. The younger Tyson pushed his conservative father into expanding production. Don convince his father to raise rock cornish game hens, a market Tyson would come to dominate.
Tyson took pains to achieve complete vertical integration, opening a processing plant in Springdale, Arkansas in 1958. By the 1960s chicken was becoming a regular visitor to America’s dinner tables; consumption increased fourfold from 1950. A drop in feed-grain prices lured many amateur chicken producers into the industry and the resulting glut caused big price cuts which drove several small companies out of business.
Tyson’s step into increased automation saved the company. In 1963 Tyson took his company public and changed its name to Tyson’s Foods, Incorporated. In 1966, John Tyson and his wife died in an automobile accident, and Don Tyson took over the business as president. The next year he began promoting the corporate name by labeling chicken wrappers with “Tyson Country Fresh Chicken” instead of the supermarket name. Tyson was on its way to being a giant in the poultry industry.
John Tyson
During the Depression John Tyson sold his first chickens to pull his family through the tough times. In 1935, Tyson purchased 50 “springer” chickens and hauled them from his farm in Arkansas to Chicago to sell at profit. Two years later, he christened his business Tyson Feed & Hatchery.
The company prospered by buying and selling chickens but Tyson was constantly needing to monitor the quality of the chickens he bartered. Gradually he became involved in raising his own chickens. In 1947, the company was incorporated.
In 1952 Tyson’s son Don joined the company as head of operations. The younger Tyson pushed his conservative father into expanding production. Don convince his father to raise rock cornish game hens, a market Tyson would come to dominate.
Tyson took pains to achieve complete vertical integration, opening a processing plant in Springdale, Arkansas in 1958. By the 1960s chicken was becoming a regular visitor to America’s dinner tables; consumption increased fourfold from 1950. A drop in feed-grain prices lured many amateur chicken producers into the industry and the resulting glut caused big price cuts which drove several small companies out of business.
Tyson’s step into increased automation saved the company. In 1963 Tyson took his company public and changed its name to Tyson’s Foods, Incorporated. In 1966, John Tyson and his wife died in an automobile accident, and Don Tyson took over the business as president. The next year he began promoting the corporate name by labeling chicken wrappers with “Tyson Country Fresh Chicken” instead of the supermarket name. Tyson was on its way to being a giant in the poultry industry.
Swift
And the man behind the brand is...
Gustavus Swift
In 1855, when Gustavus Swift was 14, his father gave him $25 to go into the meat business. He purchased a heifer for $19 and when the young cow was ready the man who would eventually sell more beef than anyone killed her himself in a shed. Swift turned a $10 profit on his $25.
Swift went to work for his brother, a Cape Cod butcher, that year and drove around New England buying and selling cattle. In 1869 he opened Swift’s Market in Clinton, Massachusetts, incorporating all the ideas he had discovered in his sales trips. Above all else Swift valued cleanliness in what was a traditionally messy business. He deplored waste and always searched for new markets that could use his by-products.
In a day when a good meat meal could be had for 15¢ Swift was doing $40,000 of business in a small New England town. But Swift was always restless to expand. In 1875 he travelled to Buffalo to buy cattle closer to their source and eliminate middle men. He saved money but realized how much more could be saved if he didn’t have to ship live animals, feeding and caring for them, back East.
He knew he had to deal in dressed beef from the Midwest. He borrowed every penny he could to expand; Swift was never one to turn down a loan offer. Daily he staked his business on faulty refrigerator cars which failed to keep his perishable goods cold. No one took his efforts seriously; others had tried and failed. Technical problems with the cars hounded him, sending him perilously close to ruin.
Railroads didn’t want dressed beef and refused to build reefer cars. Swift convinced the Michigan Car Company to build him cars which blended the best features of previous failures. Swift built ice stations on the route in the event of failures and finally Swift had 100 train cars a year coming east with Chicago dressed beef.
The battle was hardly over. Some Eastern towns boycotted the refrigerated beef they couldn’t accept as fresh. When this happened Swift refused to allow his agents to move elsewhere. They sold beef directly out of the train cars until local agents accepted the shipments. Swift simply pounded on prejudice against Western beef until he won over his customers.
Now Swift borrowed all the money anyone would lend him. Sprawling plants went up in Kansas City in 1888, Omaha in 1890, East St. Louis in 1892. Across the Midwest Swift established slaughterhouses and shipped refrigerated beef to now eager Eastern markets.
The great speed and growth of his business caught Swift unaware. When the Panic of 1893 hit over ten million dollars of Swift’s notes were called in. Swift employees lent him money to help pay the debts and nearly all the company assets were converted to cash. Through the crisis Swift remained tranquil and composed in both his business and personal life as rumors of collapse swirled around his company.
The huge meat-packing firm survived. It was Swift’s last major battle. Western beef was now accepted everywhere, and the only things he spent his time on - his company and his family - were stable and prospering. The years until his death in 1903 were unsettlingly peaceful.
Gustavus Swift
In 1855, when Gustavus Swift was 14, his father gave him $25 to go into the meat business. He purchased a heifer for $19 and when the young cow was ready the man who would eventually sell more beef than anyone killed her himself in a shed. Swift turned a $10 profit on his $25.
Swift went to work for his brother, a Cape Cod butcher, that year and drove around New England buying and selling cattle. In 1869 he opened Swift’s Market in Clinton, Massachusetts, incorporating all the ideas he had discovered in his sales trips. Above all else Swift valued cleanliness in what was a traditionally messy business. He deplored waste and always searched for new markets that could use his by-products.
In a day when a good meat meal could be had for 15¢ Swift was doing $40,000 of business in a small New England town. But Swift was always restless to expand. In 1875 he travelled to Buffalo to buy cattle closer to their source and eliminate middle men. He saved money but realized how much more could be saved if he didn’t have to ship live animals, feeding and caring for them, back East.
He knew he had to deal in dressed beef from the Midwest. He borrowed every penny he could to expand; Swift was never one to turn down a loan offer. Daily he staked his business on faulty refrigerator cars which failed to keep his perishable goods cold. No one took his efforts seriously; others had tried and failed. Technical problems with the cars hounded him, sending him perilously close to ruin.
Railroads didn’t want dressed beef and refused to build reefer cars. Swift convinced the Michigan Car Company to build him cars which blended the best features of previous failures. Swift built ice stations on the route in the event of failures and finally Swift had 100 train cars a year coming east with Chicago dressed beef.
The battle was hardly over. Some Eastern towns boycotted the refrigerated beef they couldn’t accept as fresh. When this happened Swift refused to allow his agents to move elsewhere. They sold beef directly out of the train cars until local agents accepted the shipments. Swift simply pounded on prejudice against Western beef until he won over his customers.
Now Swift borrowed all the money anyone would lend him. Sprawling plants went up in Kansas City in 1888, Omaha in 1890, East St. Louis in 1892. Across the Midwest Swift established slaughterhouses and shipped refrigerated beef to now eager Eastern markets.
The great speed and growth of his business caught Swift unaware. When the Panic of 1893 hit over ten million dollars of Swift’s notes were called in. Swift employees lent him money to help pay the debts and nearly all the company assets were converted to cash. Through the crisis Swift remained tranquil and composed in both his business and personal life as rumors of collapse swirled around his company.
The huge meat-packing firm survived. It was Swift’s last major battle. Western beef was now accepted everywhere, and the only things he spent his time on - his company and his family - were stable and prospering. The years until his death in 1903 were unsettlingly peaceful.
Perdue
And the man behind the brand is...
Frank Perdue
Arthur Perdue was a Railway Express agent in the years after World War I who loved living on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Rather than accept a transfer away from Salisbury to another station Perdue quit his job. He built a small chicken coop and began raising 50 Leghorn chickens. Soon Perdue's eggs were showing up in produce markets in New York City and other eastern towns.
During the Depression Perdue's always slim profit margins tightened even further. He mixed his own feed and salvaged leather from his shoes to make hinges for the coops. Perdue stayed out of debt through the hard times and even made a little money. He took great pride in his eggs, never missing a chance to boast about their quality.
The Depression forged the Perdue business values which would foster further growth. He scrutinized costs and never borrowed money or took on partners, fearing an inability to pay and a loss of independence. By 1940 his flock had grown to 2000 Leghorns when the chickens were decimated by leukosis, a fast-spreading avian disease.
Perdue couldn't take the chance of another devastation in his barnyard and switched from eggs to chickens and bought 800 hardy New Hampshire Reds. With his broilers he needed new distribution outlets but World War II generated great demands for all farm products and soon Perdue was realizing his greatest profits to date.
Perdue hatched chicks by the thousands, raised on a special blend of feed superior to any on the market. He trucked his broilers to market in Selbyville, Delaware where they were snapped up by large meat packers like Armour and Swift.
In 1953 Perdue was selling $8 million of chickens each year and raising 2.6 million broilers when he turned the daily operations of the farm over to his 33-year old son Frank. The poultry business was changing completely in the 1950s. Chicken raising evolved from a labor intensive business into an automated one with a chick going from egg to store in eight weeks virtually untouched by human hands. Frank Perdue convinced his father to keep up with the radical changes and build a huge chicken processing complex in Salisbury.
The new plant opened in 1958 and company growth continued modestly until 1967 when Frank convinced his father to do the unthinkable - borrow $500,000 to expand into the New York retail chicken market. In a short time Perdue Farms was selling 800,000 broilers a week and advertising the new Perdue Farms chickens in a small way when Frank Perdue decided to expand again.
Account executives from his advertising agency came to visit the Perdue operation in Salisbury for ideas. They focused on the unique yellow color of Perdue chickens, which was achieved with marigold petals in the feed, as a way to distinguish Perdue chickens as meat of the highest quality.
One other thing caught their eye. As one adman would recall, "Frank was very, very involved in everything to do with his company. So we realized that what really set Perdue chickens apart from other chickens was Frank Perdue. He looked a little like a chicken himself and sounded a little like one. He squawked a lot."
They decided to use Frank Perdue as his own spokesman, one of the first executives to do his own commercials. Revenues jumped from $58,000,000 to $500,000,000 over the next decade. Other established packers leaped into the brand chicken market launching the "Great American Chicken War" in the mid-1980s but Perdue continued to take command, exceeding one billion dollars in annual sales.
Frank Perdue
Arthur Perdue was a Railway Express agent in the years after World War I who loved living on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Rather than accept a transfer away from Salisbury to another station Perdue quit his job. He built a small chicken coop and began raising 50 Leghorn chickens. Soon Perdue's eggs were showing up in produce markets in New York City and other eastern towns.
During the Depression Perdue's always slim profit margins tightened even further. He mixed his own feed and salvaged leather from his shoes to make hinges for the coops. Perdue stayed out of debt through the hard times and even made a little money. He took great pride in his eggs, never missing a chance to boast about their quality.
The Depression forged the Perdue business values which would foster further growth. He scrutinized costs and never borrowed money or took on partners, fearing an inability to pay and a loss of independence. By 1940 his flock had grown to 2000 Leghorns when the chickens were decimated by leukosis, a fast-spreading avian disease.
Perdue couldn't take the chance of another devastation in his barnyard and switched from eggs to chickens and bought 800 hardy New Hampshire Reds. With his broilers he needed new distribution outlets but World War II generated great demands for all farm products and soon Perdue was realizing his greatest profits to date.
Perdue hatched chicks by the thousands, raised on a special blend of feed superior to any on the market. He trucked his broilers to market in Selbyville, Delaware where they were snapped up by large meat packers like Armour and Swift.
In 1953 Perdue was selling $8 million of chickens each year and raising 2.6 million broilers when he turned the daily operations of the farm over to his 33-year old son Frank. The poultry business was changing completely in the 1950s. Chicken raising evolved from a labor intensive business into an automated one with a chick going from egg to store in eight weeks virtually untouched by human hands. Frank Perdue convinced his father to keep up with the radical changes and build a huge chicken processing complex in Salisbury.
The new plant opened in 1958 and company growth continued modestly until 1967 when Frank convinced his father to do the unthinkable - borrow $500,000 to expand into the New York retail chicken market. In a short time Perdue Farms was selling 800,000 broilers a week and advertising the new Perdue Farms chickens in a small way when Frank Perdue decided to expand again.
Account executives from his advertising agency came to visit the Perdue operation in Salisbury for ideas. They focused on the unique yellow color of Perdue chickens, which was achieved with marigold petals in the feed, as a way to distinguish Perdue chickens as meat of the highest quality.
One other thing caught their eye. As one adman would recall, "Frank was very, very involved in everything to do with his company. So we realized that what really set Perdue chickens apart from other chickens was Frank Perdue. He looked a little like a chicken himself and sounded a little like one. He squawked a lot."
They decided to use Frank Perdue as his own spokesman, one of the first executives to do his own commercials. Revenues jumped from $58,000,000 to $500,000,000 over the next decade. Other established packers leaped into the brand chicken market launching the "Great American Chicken War" in the mid-1980s but Perdue continued to take command, exceeding one billion dollars in annual sales.
Oscar Mayer
And the man behind the brand is...
Oscar Mayer
Sausage was a popular table food in America in the late 1800s, served up by thousands of German wurstmachers cooking up old family recipes in corner butcher shops. But Oscar F. Mayer, who was to become the most famous of the sausage-makers, descended from a family of ministers and foresters.
Mayer came to America in 1873 at the age of 14. He joined family members in Detroit where he immediately went to work in a meat shop. The family moved on to Chicago and Mayer found work in Kohlhammer's Meat Market. In 1883 the 24-year old Mayer opened his own small butcher shop on Chicago's North Side.
Pork was selling for 8¢-12¢ a pound and first day sales were $59. From the beginning Mayer placed an emphasis on quality above all else and soon his salesmen could be seen carrying large orders in wicker baskets out of the neighborhood. The business grew rapidly to meet the lively demand for quality Oscar Mayer meats. The business was so successful that the former owner of the shop refused to renew Mayer's lease after five years, saying he wanted to make some money himself.
Mayer bought property and moved the business into a new two-story building. At the turn of the century Oscar Mayer & Company ledgers listed 43 employees, included among them "five wagon salesmen, one pig-head and feet cleaner and cooker, and two stablemen to take care of the delivery horses."
In 1929 Oscar Mayer became the first to break the traditional anonymity of meat producers by branding its weiners with a yellow paper ring. It guaranteed that Oscar Mayer wieners could be distinguished from others in the grocer's case. This brand identification paved the way for consumer advertising - an unheard of concept for meat products. The "Oscar Mayer Wiener Song" eventually became so famous it was performed by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.
Mayer remained active until his death at 95. His obsession for quality had steered his company away from the herd of local butchers in the 19th century to the forefront of national processing in the 20th.
Oscar Mayer
Sausage was a popular table food in America in the late 1800s, served up by thousands of German wurstmachers cooking up old family recipes in corner butcher shops. But Oscar F. Mayer, who was to become the most famous of the sausage-makers, descended from a family of ministers and foresters.
Mayer came to America in 1873 at the age of 14. He joined family members in Detroit where he immediately went to work in a meat shop. The family moved on to Chicago and Mayer found work in Kohlhammer's Meat Market. In 1883 the 24-year old Mayer opened his own small butcher shop on Chicago's North Side.
Pork was selling for 8¢-12¢ a pound and first day sales were $59. From the beginning Mayer placed an emphasis on quality above all else and soon his salesmen could be seen carrying large orders in wicker baskets out of the neighborhood. The business grew rapidly to meet the lively demand for quality Oscar Mayer meats. The business was so successful that the former owner of the shop refused to renew Mayer's lease after five years, saying he wanted to make some money himself.
Mayer bought property and moved the business into a new two-story building. At the turn of the century Oscar Mayer & Company ledgers listed 43 employees, included among them "five wagon salesmen, one pig-head and feet cleaner and cooker, and two stablemen to take care of the delivery horses."
In 1929 Oscar Mayer became the first to break the traditional anonymity of meat producers by branding its weiners with a yellow paper ring. It guaranteed that Oscar Mayer wieners could be distinguished from others in the grocer's case. This brand identification paved the way for consumer advertising - an unheard of concept for meat products. The "Oscar Mayer Wiener Song" eventually became so famous it was performed by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.
Mayer remained active until his death at 95. His obsession for quality had steered his company away from the herd of local butchers in the 19th century to the forefront of national processing in the 20th.
Libby's
And the man behind the brand is...
Arthur Libby
Arthur Libby was born in 1831; his brother Charles seven years later. Like many others in mid-America in the middle 19th century the Libbys gravitated towards the slaughterhouses of Chicago. In 1868 Arthur, Charles and a third partner, Archibald McNeill, pooled $3000 to start producing corned beef in barrels to ship to eastern markets.
Arthur got up at 3:00 each morning to scour the stockyards on the South Side of Chicago for the very best beef. But others were hustling the yards as well. The Libbys separated themselves from the competition in 1875 when they became the first firm to market meat in tin cans. By 1879 the Libbys were processing 200,000 cattle a year.
Charles Libby, the youngest, died first, in 1895. Arthur Libby died four years later at the age of 68. Their tinned meats insured their name would carry into the new century.
Arthur Libby
Arthur Libby was born in 1831; his brother Charles seven years later. Like many others in mid-America in the middle 19th century the Libbys gravitated towards the slaughterhouses of Chicago. In 1868 Arthur, Charles and a third partner, Archibald McNeill, pooled $3000 to start producing corned beef in barrels to ship to eastern markets.
Arthur got up at 3:00 each morning to scour the stockyards on the South Side of Chicago for the very best beef. But others were hustling the yards as well. The Libbys separated themselves from the competition in 1875 when they became the first firm to market meat in tin cans. By 1879 the Libbys were processing 200,000 cattle a year.
Charles Libby, the youngest, died first, in 1895. Arthur Libby died four years later at the age of 68. Their tinned meats insured their name would carry into the new century.
Hormel
And the man behind the brand is...
George Hormel
Meat-packing was in George Hormel's blood. After several false starts Hormel finally settled into his life's work, establishing a reputation for innovative meat products that continues today. In an 18-month period during the late 1980s the Hormel Company introduced 134 new products.
George Hormel was born in Buffalo in 1860 before moving to Toledo, Ohio where his father opened a tannery. His mother came from an immigrant meat-packing family and at age 15 George left to work in his uncle's butcher business in Chicago. His health failed however, forcing Hormel back to Ohio.
The convalescing youth filled out his 6'2" frame and after stints in his father's tannery and a railroad yard he set out for Kansas City to seek his fortune. Hormel found a job as a wool-buyer calling on accounts in dusty frontier towns in the upper midwest. He was especially fond of the northern-most town in his territory, Austin, Minnesota. Here Hormel spent much of his leisure time joining several recreation clubs.
His Kansas City company failed and Hormel landed in Chicago as a hide buyer. On a trip to visit friends in Austin in 1887 he learned of a butcher shop which had been damaged by fire. With $500 borrowed from his employer Hormel joined a friend in refurbishing the building into a retail meat market and pork packing business.
After a disagreement over the direction of the business the partnership dissolved in 1891 and George opened the Hormel Provision Market. The next year in a small grove of oak trees along the Red Cedar River Hormel converted an old creamery into a packing house. George handled the production of sausage, hams and bacon himself. The first year he slaughtered 610 hogs.
Hormel poured every dollar of profit back into his business. Output increased to 2532 hogs in 1893 and soon he controlled most of the meat market in the region. That year large Chicago packers introduced improved refrigerator cars which allowed them to sell and deliver product in faraway communities, virtually eliminating competition from small midwest packers. All but four of several hundred packers west of the Mississippi closed their shops.
Hormel decided he needed more and better products to survive. He concentrated on a superior sausage which became popular locally and in 1895 he introduced the first of his company's new products - "Hormel's Sugar-Cured Pig Back Bacon", known today as Canadian bacon.
Before 1900 ice plants were non-existent. Meat shops butchered fresh beef and pork mostly on demand. This constricting system was inadequate for Hormel's ambitious operation. He installed an ice storage plant with ice cut in 18-inch slabs from the frozen Red Cedar. The business expanded rapidly and in 1899 Hormel sent for his father and three brothers to join him in the business. Their arrival allowed George Hormel to put down his cleaver forever.
Hormel's own son, Jay, returned from World War I to join the firm and uncovered a scandal that rocked the Hormel Packing Company. An assistant controller had embezzled $1,187,000 leaving the company short of funds to pay three million dollars in bank notes. Hormel's integrity won him extensions that kept the business afloat.
He aggressively restructured the organization and in 1926, the year George Hormel retired from active management of the company, he introduced "Hormel Flavor-Sealed Ham", America's first canned ham. Hormel added Dinty Moore beef stew in 1935 and canned chili in 1936 to the product line.
In 1937 Hormel developed a spiced ham and ground pork product destined for pop culture immortality. Because the canned meat included shoulder meat it couldn't be called ham. Hormel sponsored a contest to name the new meat. The winner received $1100 and SPAM entered American lexicon. It became a World War II staple and though roundly ridiculed it sold one billion cans in its first 20 years.
Hormel withstood a bitter labor strike in 1933 when disgruntled employees armed with clubs physically removed Jay Hormel from his office and threatened to shut off the plant's refrigeration system endangering millions of pounds of meat. A compromise was reached in three days and Hormel subsequently became a leader in innovative labor relations policies. When George Hormel died in 1946 the company he founded in 1892 by dressing 610 hogs was processing 5000 hogs a day.
George Hormel
Meat-packing was in George Hormel's blood. After several false starts Hormel finally settled into his life's work, establishing a reputation for innovative meat products that continues today. In an 18-month period during the late 1980s the Hormel Company introduced 134 new products.
George Hormel was born in Buffalo in 1860 before moving to Toledo, Ohio where his father opened a tannery. His mother came from an immigrant meat-packing family and at age 15 George left to work in his uncle's butcher business in Chicago. His health failed however, forcing Hormel back to Ohio.
The convalescing youth filled out his 6'2" frame and after stints in his father's tannery and a railroad yard he set out for Kansas City to seek his fortune. Hormel found a job as a wool-buyer calling on accounts in dusty frontier towns in the upper midwest. He was especially fond of the northern-most town in his territory, Austin, Minnesota. Here Hormel spent much of his leisure time joining several recreation clubs.
His Kansas City company failed and Hormel landed in Chicago as a hide buyer. On a trip to visit friends in Austin in 1887 he learned of a butcher shop which had been damaged by fire. With $500 borrowed from his employer Hormel joined a friend in refurbishing the building into a retail meat market and pork packing business.
After a disagreement over the direction of the business the partnership dissolved in 1891 and George opened the Hormel Provision Market. The next year in a small grove of oak trees along the Red Cedar River Hormel converted an old creamery into a packing house. George handled the production of sausage, hams and bacon himself. The first year he slaughtered 610 hogs.
Hormel poured every dollar of profit back into his business. Output increased to 2532 hogs in 1893 and soon he controlled most of the meat market in the region. That year large Chicago packers introduced improved refrigerator cars which allowed them to sell and deliver product in faraway communities, virtually eliminating competition from small midwest packers. All but four of several hundred packers west of the Mississippi closed their shops.
Hormel decided he needed more and better products to survive. He concentrated on a superior sausage which became popular locally and in 1895 he introduced the first of his company's new products - "Hormel's Sugar-Cured Pig Back Bacon", known today as Canadian bacon.
Before 1900 ice plants were non-existent. Meat shops butchered fresh beef and pork mostly on demand. This constricting system was inadequate for Hormel's ambitious operation. He installed an ice storage plant with ice cut in 18-inch slabs from the frozen Red Cedar. The business expanded rapidly and in 1899 Hormel sent for his father and three brothers to join him in the business. Their arrival allowed George Hormel to put down his cleaver forever.
Hormel's own son, Jay, returned from World War I to join the firm and uncovered a scandal that rocked the Hormel Packing Company. An assistant controller had embezzled $1,187,000 leaving the company short of funds to pay three million dollars in bank notes. Hormel's integrity won him extensions that kept the business afloat.
He aggressively restructured the organization and in 1926, the year George Hormel retired from active management of the company, he introduced "Hormel Flavor-Sealed Ham", America's first canned ham. Hormel added Dinty Moore beef stew in 1935 and canned chili in 1936 to the product line.
In 1937 Hormel developed a spiced ham and ground pork product destined for pop culture immortality. Because the canned meat included shoulder meat it couldn't be called ham. Hormel sponsored a contest to name the new meat. The winner received $1100 and SPAM entered American lexicon. It became a World War II staple and though roundly ridiculed it sold one billion cans in its first 20 years.
Hormel withstood a bitter labor strike in 1933 when disgruntled employees armed with clubs physically removed Jay Hormel from his office and threatened to shut off the plant's refrigeration system endangering millions of pounds of meat. A compromise was reached in three days and Hormel subsequently became a leader in innovative labor relations policies. When George Hormel died in 1946 the company he founded in 1892 by dressing 610 hogs was processing 5000 hogs a day.
February 6, 2007
Armour
And the man behind the brand is...
Philip Armour
Philip Danforth Armour, "Phil" until he died, grew up on a farm in Stockbridge, New York with, as one biographer dutifully noted, "no tradition of zeal for scholarship." He was discharged over a matter of discipline from the Cazenovia Academy in 1849 at the age of 17 and thrust into the working world.
Armour clerked in a store for two years until he could no longer resist the romantic tales coming east from the California Gold Rush. He set out for the West Coast on foot and by rail. When he arrived in California Armour quickly noticed that most miners never struck it rich and those that did lost their fortunes more often than not.
Rather than grab a pick and axe Armour went to work building sluiceways so the miners could have water in which to pan their gold. In five years he had saved $8000 and headed home to New York to buy a good farm. On the way home Armour stopped to visit his brother Herman in Milwaukee. He would stay for another 19 years.
Armour was impressed by the thriving community he found in Milwaukee. He established a produce and commission business and in 1863 Armour entered into a partnership with John Plankinton, a pioneer packer in the Midwest. In the winter of 1864-1865 Armour travelled to New York, then the center of the pork packing industry.
At the time pork was selling for $40 a barrel and spiraling upward. The consensus among veteran New York commodity traders was that the price was going nowhere but up. Armour saw things differently. He believed with the end of the Civil War in sight the price of pork would fall when the Confederacy did. The New York traders were eager to buy as much pork as the brash young man from Milwaukee could sell at $40 a barrel.
As Armour gambled it would, pork collapsed as Richmond fell. He filled all his eastern orders with pork he purchased for $18 a barrel. As many brokers tried to repudiate their contracts with Armour he stayed in New York for 90 days forcing his debtors to settle. Thereafter Armour's business grew with unprecedented rapidity.
In 1867 Armour and Plankinton set up a packing plant in Chicago as Armour & Company. In 1867 Chicago was a city renowned for its muddy, unpaved streets but with a bustling railroad business it began looking like the midwestern city of the future.
In the first year Armour's pork business outgrew the compay’s Bell House plant and the partners acquired the Griffith House plant. Beef and lamb were quickly added to the line. Armour's four brothers joined the business as Armour's influence spread to Kansas City and New York.
At the time meat processing was a seasonal business limited to cold weather months. There was no system other than salt cure to preserve perishable meat. In 1872 a method using natural ice in large scale coolers was devised and Armour & Company built the world's first large chill room with temperatures cooled by large blocks of ice cut in the winter and stored under sawdust through the summer.
Armour had converted the meat business into a year-round industry. He not only now offered Americans fresh meat daily but he created an ice industry and stimulated the transport of live hogs for slaughter in Chicago rather than on the farms where they were raised. He built the massive Union Stock Yards in 1872. For the first time more hogs than pork carcasses arrived in Chicago.
In 1878 the first crude refrigerator railroad cars and ships, known as reefers, began to appear and Armour's markets spread across the globe. He created an oval-shaped label bearing the legend "Armour Star Ham" which became one of the best known trademarks in the history of the American food business. The star appeared in yellow on a dark blue background and told buyers they were getting the very best ham on the market. It was the first of nearly 1000 Armour trademarks.
In 1882 Plankinton retired from the business and in 1884 Armour finally retired from his business in Milwaukee, where he had lived until 1875, to devote himself to the bustling Chicago empire. By this time Armour & Company was involved in every facet of the meat packing industry. The Armours controlled vast grain and feed interests, owned their own railroad cars, and had distribution plants across the country.
In the 1880s Armour & Company became a leader in converting by-products into useful products like buttons, combs and glue. Armour added a department to sell pepsin - a digestive aid - which became the forerunner of the Armour Pharmaceutical Company. Other industries included oleomargarine (1880), ammonia (1891), fertilizer (1894), curled hair for cushions (1895), laundry soap (1896), glycerine (1896), brushes (1897) and sandpaper (1900).
Armour was a robust man with sandy hair and red whiskers. He conducted conferences every day with one department head or another to keep reign on his wide-reaching ventures which employed 20,000 people. But one manager he made certain to meet with every day was the Reverend Dr. Frank Gunsauius, who advised Armour regarding all his charities.
The man who built one of the most splendid enterprises of the 19th century began to fade away with the end of the epoch. He became sick in 1899 and died early in 1901. He had enough time to carefully plan for the future of Armour & Company in the interim. "There's no such thing as luck," Armour said, "Brains always have and always will command the highest market value."
Philip Armour
Philip Danforth Armour, "Phil" until he died, grew up on a farm in Stockbridge, New York with, as one biographer dutifully noted, "no tradition of zeal for scholarship." He was discharged over a matter of discipline from the Cazenovia Academy in 1849 at the age of 17 and thrust into the working world.
Armour clerked in a store for two years until he could no longer resist the romantic tales coming east from the California Gold Rush. He set out for the West Coast on foot and by rail. When he arrived in California Armour quickly noticed that most miners never struck it rich and those that did lost their fortunes more often than not.
Rather than grab a pick and axe Armour went to work building sluiceways so the miners could have water in which to pan their gold. In five years he had saved $8000 and headed home to New York to buy a good farm. On the way home Armour stopped to visit his brother Herman in Milwaukee. He would stay for another 19 years.
Armour was impressed by the thriving community he found in Milwaukee. He established a produce and commission business and in 1863 Armour entered into a partnership with John Plankinton, a pioneer packer in the Midwest. In the winter of 1864-1865 Armour travelled to New York, then the center of the pork packing industry.
At the time pork was selling for $40 a barrel and spiraling upward. The consensus among veteran New York commodity traders was that the price was going nowhere but up. Armour saw things differently. He believed with the end of the Civil War in sight the price of pork would fall when the Confederacy did. The New York traders were eager to buy as much pork as the brash young man from Milwaukee could sell at $40 a barrel.
As Armour gambled it would, pork collapsed as Richmond fell. He filled all his eastern orders with pork he purchased for $18 a barrel. As many brokers tried to repudiate their contracts with Armour he stayed in New York for 90 days forcing his debtors to settle. Thereafter Armour's business grew with unprecedented rapidity.
In 1867 Armour and Plankinton set up a packing plant in Chicago as Armour & Company. In 1867 Chicago was a city renowned for its muddy, unpaved streets but with a bustling railroad business it began looking like the midwestern city of the future.
In the first year Armour's pork business outgrew the compay’s Bell House plant and the partners acquired the Griffith House plant. Beef and lamb were quickly added to the line. Armour's four brothers joined the business as Armour's influence spread to Kansas City and New York.
At the time meat processing was a seasonal business limited to cold weather months. There was no system other than salt cure to preserve perishable meat. In 1872 a method using natural ice in large scale coolers was devised and Armour & Company built the world's first large chill room with temperatures cooled by large blocks of ice cut in the winter and stored under sawdust through the summer.
Armour had converted the meat business into a year-round industry. He not only now offered Americans fresh meat daily but he created an ice industry and stimulated the transport of live hogs for slaughter in Chicago rather than on the farms where they were raised. He built the massive Union Stock Yards in 1872. For the first time more hogs than pork carcasses arrived in Chicago.
In 1878 the first crude refrigerator railroad cars and ships, known as reefers, began to appear and Armour's markets spread across the globe. He created an oval-shaped label bearing the legend "Armour Star Ham" which became one of the best known trademarks in the history of the American food business. The star appeared in yellow on a dark blue background and told buyers they were getting the very best ham on the market. It was the first of nearly 1000 Armour trademarks.
In 1882 Plankinton retired from the business and in 1884 Armour finally retired from his business in Milwaukee, where he had lived until 1875, to devote himself to the bustling Chicago empire. By this time Armour & Company was involved in every facet of the meat packing industry. The Armours controlled vast grain and feed interests, owned their own railroad cars, and had distribution plants across the country.
In the 1880s Armour & Company became a leader in converting by-products into useful products like buttons, combs and glue. Armour added a department to sell pepsin - a digestive aid - which became the forerunner of the Armour Pharmaceutical Company. Other industries included oleomargarine (1880), ammonia (1891), fertilizer (1894), curled hair for cushions (1895), laundry soap (1896), glycerine (1896), brushes (1897) and sandpaper (1900).
Armour was a robust man with sandy hair and red whiskers. He conducted conferences every day with one department head or another to keep reign on his wide-reaching ventures which employed 20,000 people. But one manager he made certain to meet with every day was the Reverend Dr. Frank Gunsauius, who advised Armour regarding all his charities.
The man who built one of the most splendid enterprises of the 19th century began to fade away with the end of the epoch. He became sick in 1899 and died early in 1901. He had enough time to carefully plan for the future of Armour & Company in the interim. "There's no such thing as luck," Armour said, "Brains always have and always will command the highest market value."
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