Growth and Diversification: The Evolution of Associated British Foods

Associated British Foods (ABF) has a rich history that dates back to 1935. Initially founded as Food Investments Limited, the company quickly rebranded as Allied Bakeries Limited within just five weeks, reflecting its focus on food production. Its early years were marked by rapid expansion, becoming a significant player in the UK’s food manufacturing sector. By February 1960, ABF evolved into Associated British Foods Limited, a name change that signified its growth beyond baking and into a broader range of food-related businesses.

The 1960s were a transformative decade for ABF, characterized by aggressive expansion through acquisitions. This growth strategy not only allowed ABF to diversify its product offerings but also enabled the company to enter new markets, both geographically and sectorally. Through these acquisitions, ABF was able to integrate vertically, gaining control over more stages of the production process, and horizontally, expanding its presence in different food categories. By the time the company rebranded as Associated British Foods plc in 1982 to comply with legal requirements, it had become a multinational conglomerate with a strong foundation in multiple industries.

ABF’s business model today is highly diversified, with operations spanning five key segments: Grocery, Sugar, Agriculture, Ingredients, and Retail. The Grocery segment includes popular household brands such as Twinings, Kingsmill, and Jordans, which are staples in many countries. The Sugar segment, meanwhile, plays a critical role in producing and processing sugar beet and cane, an essential ingredient in many food products. The Agriculture segment focuses on animal feed and agricultural services, supporting the food production chain from the ground up. The Ingredients segment is crucial for baking and other food industries, producing enzymes, specialty proteins, and other essential components. Finally, the Retail segment, led by Primark, has been a standout success, making ABF a major player in the fashion retail industry across Europe and the US.

Today, ABF operates in 47 countries and employs over 113,000 people. Its continued success stems from its adaptability and strategic approach, including the ability to innovate, leverage acquisitions, and maintain a diversified portfolio across multiple industries. These factors have solidified its position as a global leader in both the food and retail sectors.
Growth and Diversification: The Evolution of Associated British Foods

Mondelēz International

Mondelēz, formerly known as Kraft Foods Inc., is a U.S.-based food, beverage, and snack manufacturer with securities registered with the Commission. It is an American multinational confectionary, food and beverage company based in Illinois which employs about 110,000 people around the world. The company has an annual revenue of about $26 billion and operates in approximately 160 countries.

The company was founded by James Lewis Kraft in 1903 is headquartered in Chicago, IL. In 1909, James L. Kraft was joined by his four brother to form J.L Kraft and Bros. Company.

In 1930, Kraft Foods was acquired by National Dairy and in 1969, the firm changed its name from National Dairy to Kraftco Corporation. In February 2010, Kraft acquired Cadbury, a U.K.-based confectionary and snack beverage company that had securities registered with the Commission.

In October 2012, Kraft re-named itself Mondelēz International, Inc. The name “Mondelēz International” was adopted following the successful spin-off of Kraft Foods Inc.’s North American grocery operations in October 2012 in which both became two independent publicly listed companies. Mondelēz retained the global snacking business.
Mondelēz International

History of Post Cereals Company

Post Holdings is a global consumer packaged goods holding company, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Post Holdings founded in 1895, and is one of the largest cereal company in America, including to their portfolio Grape-Nuts, Raisin Bran, Honey Bunches of Oats and protein brands include PowerBar. The holding operates four different segments: Post Consumer Brands, Michael Foods Group, Active Nutrition, and Private Brands.

It was C. W Post, the founder of Post Cereals who first clearly comprehend that convenience and flavor were more forceful and more widely appreciated advantages than were the healthfulness and vegetable origin previously relied upon as selling points by producers of these foods.

C.W Post makes his first batch of Postum, a cereal beverage, in a barn in battle Creek, Michigan and starts the Postum cereal Company. The first cereal, Grape-Nuts, was developed in 1897 followed by Elijah's Manna in 1904 which was renamed Post Toasties in 1908. In January 1906, Post Cereals introduced a new version of the corn flakes.

In 1911, Post introduced a refinement of his original product, POSTUM Instant Cereal Beverage. Post used marketing techniques that are now considered industry standards, but which were innovative for their time.

The Postum Cereals company, after acquiring Jell-O gelatin in 1925, Baker's Chocolate in 1927, Maxwell House coffee in 1928, and other food brands, changed its name to General Foods Corporation in 1929.

Through the years, the management at General Foods refined and improved its product line in part through acquisitions and divestitures and, in part, through research and development. Internally-developed products included JELL-O Pudding and Pie Fillings (1936), MAXWELL HOUSE Instant Coffee (1945), TANG Flavour Crystals (1957), DREAM WHIP Topping Mix (1957) and COOL WHIP Whipped Topping (1966).

C.W Post's daughter bought out Birdseye, changed the name to General Foods Corporation. General Foods was acquired by Philip Morris Companies in 1985.

History of Post Cereals Company

The invention of Philly Cheesesteaks

The Philadelphia cheesesteak is a sandwich of legend. Pat’s hot dog stand was founded in 1930 by Olivieri brothers (Pat and Harry Olivieri).

They first served cheesesteaks in 1933 on the corner of Ninth and Passyunk in South Philadelphia. The legend goes that the brothers were bored at lunch and wanted to experiment with something new.

They went to the market for ingredients. He cooked the meat on his hot dog grill, placed the meat onto an Italian roll and dressed it with some onions. And thus the cheesesteak was born. Allegedly, they sold the first cheesesteak to a cab driver for 10c.

As the years passed both employees and customers alike demanded change …. cheese was added. The cheese was added in the 1940s and at first it was provolone, the inspiration of a manager named Cocky Joe Lorenzo.

While provolone remains the cheese of choice for many fans, the true Philly Cheesesteak is topped with Cheez Whiz. Pat’s King of Steaks, still owned and operated by the Olivieri family, is known for its Philadelphia cheesesteak sandwiches.
The invention of Philly Cheesesteaks

Pop-Tarts of Kellogg Company

In 1963 Post Cereals released their first product of breakfast cereals, Country Squares to the public. This was part of long term goal set by Post, which was to develop non cereal products after World War II that did not require refrigeration.

To counter Post Cereal’s Country Squares Kellogg came up with product that was initially called a Fruit Scone. It was designed to expand the range of items that could be cooked in a toaster.

The name was changed to Pop-Tart, which was inspired by the pop-art movement. Pop-Tarts have sugary fillings, which are sealed inside two layers of a pastry crust. Pop-Tarts were sold in the grocery stores in Cleveland, Ohio, Kellogg’s instructed store managers to stock the Pop-Tarts in the baked goods or baking supplies aisle and not in the cereal aisle, because they did not want Pop-Tarts to be substituted for cereal.

Post Cereals’ Country Squares failed to take off, but Pop-Tarts sakes were extremely successful when they were released in 1964. Pop-Tarts rapidly grew popular because of television commercial for them that featured a talking cartoon named Milton.

Over the years, some of the delicious flavors of Pop-Tarts have included Blueberry, Cherry Strawberry, Grape, Raspberry, Apple Cinnamon, Brown Sugar, Chocolate Fudge, Vanilla Crème, S’mores, and Peanut Butter and Jelly.

As of 2011, Kellogg produced thirty flavors of Pop-Tarts. The most popular flavors are frosted strawberry and frosted brown sugar cinnamon.
Pop-Tarts of Kellogg Company 

Subway restaurant

While still in college Fred Deluca, opened his first Subway restaurant in Connecticut in 1965 with just US$1000 borrowed from a friend of the family.

Nine years later he began franchising after opening the first one in Bridgeport, Connecticut. By 1995, Subway had grown to more than 10,000 locations.

The franchising chain opened its first international restaurant in Bahrain in 1984.

Initially Subway did not seek to expand internationally, but when an entrepreneur from Bahrain approached the company about opening a sandwich shop on the Persian Gulf island, Subway decided to accept the challenge of global expansion.

Since then, Subway has expanded worldwide, and generates about 20 percent of its annual revenues abroad.

As of April, 2004, Fred Deluca’s Subway restaurant chain has opened 21,000 sandwich shops in 73 countries and has eclipsed McDonald’s as the largest restaurant chain in the United States.
Subway restaurant 

History of Frito-Lay Company

The Frito Company
Corn chips, which are derived from corn masa like that used in tortillas, were originally developed by Gustavo Olguin. Charles Elmer Doolin worked for him as a fry cook for a short time.

In 1932, Charles Elmer Doolin purchased a Gustavo’s corn chip recipe, a handheld potato ricer and 19 retail accounts for $100. Doolin set his new business venture in his mother’s kitchen. Because there was no money for hiring employees his family helped him.

In 1933, the fritos production was increased by designing a ‘hammer’ pres and the company continued to expand.

In 1945, The Frito Sales Company was established, which separated sales from production activities. Expansion by the Frito National Company continued with issues of six franchises in 1945.

H. W Lay & Company
Herman W. Lay was a salesman for Sunshine Biscuit Company, but during the Depression he lost his job.

In 1932 Lay was hired by Barrel Foods a snack food firm in Atlanta Georgia, and began selling peanut butter sandwiches in southern Kentucky and Tennessee. His job is to sell and make deliveries for the company by his model A Ford touring car.

Lay was an aggressive business and began acquiring distributorships. As his territories expanded, his profits arise. When Barrett’s founder died in 1937, Lay bought the company, which included plants in Atlanta and Memphis, Tennessee.  He changed the company name onto H. W Lay Co. Inc on October 2, 1939.

By end of the World War II, Lay’s had become a major regional produce of snack food. After the war Lay automated his potato chip manufacturing business and diversified its products.

Popcorn, manufactured in Nashville, Tennessee, was the first product to have the ‘Lay’s’ brand name. Lay also manufactured potato chips.

Frito Lay Incorporation
In 1945, Lay met Elmer Doolin. Doolin franchised Herman Lay a license to distribute Fritos.  The two companies also cooperated on other products.

In September 1961, The Frito Company and H. W Lay & Company merged to become Frito-Lay, Inc.

On June 8, 1965, the merger of Frito-Lay and Pepsi-Cola Company was granted by shareholders of both companies, and a new company called PepsiCo, Inc was form.

By the end of the 1960s, Frito –Lay was the dominant company in the snack world.
History of Frito-Lay Company

History of Vegemite

Introduced in 1922 by a fellow named Dr Cyril P Callister at Fred Walker Cheese Company, Vegemite was created in an attempt to figure out what to do with brewery waste.

The spread was made from brewer’s yeast and was contained in an amber jar. In 1923, a competition was run to name this delicious new spread. The prize for the name Vegemite was fifty pounds but the name of the winning contestant has since been lost.

Vegemite was not a very big hit in Australia until the Great Depression smacked into the world in 1929.

When the depression hit, parents were concerned about how to pack the most nutrition into the most people for the least amount of money. Vegemite provided a solution, being very high in B vitamins and very inexpensive.

In 1926, the company became known as the Kraft Walker Cheese Company, after the c0ompany merged with American food giant Kraft.

The Kraft Foods has achieved a history of success by doing nothing to the original product and only updating external factors such as packaging and the occasional consumer promotion.
History of Vegemite

Business history of Krispy Kreme

Joe LeBeau, a French chef in New Orleans is credited with developing the yeast-raised doughnut sometime before the Great Depression.

He sold the business in 1935 to Vernon Rudolph who took the business to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. On July 13, 1937, Vernon Rudolph launched a doughnut shop which became known as Krispy Kreme in a rented store on Gallatin Road.

Krispy Kreme also sells doughnuts through grocery stores. And to customers through a window in is small factory. During the 1940s, Rudolph opened other outlets for his doughnuts particularly in the southeast.

The chain became a beloved Southern fixture, selling glazed yeast-raised donuts. During the 1980sm the chain added a neon sign advertising ‘Hot Krispy Kreme Original Glazed Now’ and featured the doughnut machine in the center of the some store.

In 1976, Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corporation became a wholly owned subsidiary of Beatrice Foods of Chicago, Illinois.

For a short time in the 1970s, the Beatrice Foods Company operated Krispy Kreme without success. Krispy Kreme was purchased from Beatrice in 1980s by one of the Krispy Kreme’s largest franchisees.

Krispy Kreme began to expand abroad, ripening it first international outlet in Canada in 2001; subsequently outlets have opened in seventeen other countries, including Australia and Japan.
Business history of Krispy Kreme

Del Monte Foods

Del Monte Foods is an American food manufacturing and distribution company that was launched in 1899 when 18 California packers representing about half of the fruit canners in California formed the California Fruit Canners Association.

Seventeen years later the association incorporated under the name California Packers Association or Calpak. It began marketing a line of canned goods under the Del Monte brand (the name of a luxurious hotel on Monterey, California) in 1916.

California Packers Association remained the firm’s name until 1967, when Calpal took the name of its brand and became Del Monte Foods.

From the beginning, the company expanded its operations and packed a vast array of products, including peaches, baked beans, olives berries, squash, sweet potatoes, peppers and cranberries as well as dried fruit, jams, and jellies.

During the 1920s, the company expanded its operations into an array of other canning business including tuna and coffee.

In 1917 Calpak enlisted the culinary expert Marion Harris Neil to write an advertising cookbooklet, Good Things to Eat, feature Del Monte products. The company has regularly published cookbooklets ever since.

Del Monte established operations in Hawaii shortly after its founding. When the United States entered World War II, the company sent 50 percent of its canned fruits and vegetables to the military. After World War II, Calpak increased its sales to foreign countries and by 1965 exports topped $96 million.

In 1979, Del Monte merged with RJ Reynolds Industries. During the following two decades there were several ownership changes. In 1999 Del Monte Foods became a publicly traded Company. Del Monte fresh produce was then spun off, although it still continues to display the Del Monte label, as do independent firms in Canada, Africa, Europe and Asia.
Del Monte Foods

Jelly-O Company

Jell-O was invented in 1897 in LeRoy, New York by a carpenter named Pearle Bixby Wait.  Wait also made and sold patent medicines, so he knew how to add colorings and flavorings to prettify products of unsavory origins – such as the boiled calves feet used to make gelatin.

Pearle Bixby Wait

It was his wife, May who came up with the name Jell-O by attaching to the word ‘jell’ the ‘O’, a popular ending for product names at the time. Wait registered Jell-O as a trademark in 1897. The first four flavors of the gelatin desert were orange, lemon, strawberry and raspberry.

Frank Woodward, owner of the Genesee Pure Food Company bought in the formula, for $450. The company launched a massive advertising campaign and by 1902, Jell-O’s annuals sales reached $250,000.

Two years later he introduced the Jell-O Girl and sent horse drawn wagons to rural communities to promote the new product.

The Jell-O so dominated the Genesee Pure Food Company that the firm’s name was change to the Jell-O Company in 1923. Two years later, it was acquired by the Postum Cereal Company (later renamed General Foods Corporation). Postum reduced Jell-O’s price and scored record sales but not record profits. General Foods was merged with Kraft Foods in 1989.
Jelly-O Company

History of Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix

Aunt Jemima pancake flour is the first nationally distributed ready-mix food and one of the earliest products to be marketed through personal appearances and advertisements featuring its namesakes.

In 1889, Charles Rutt and Chris Underwood founded the Pearl Milling Company.

They created the first ready-mixed pancake flour. Charles Rutt chose Aunt Jemima as advertising’s first living trademark.

The product was originally named ‘Self-Rising Pancake Flour’ and sold in bags. In the fall of 1889 Rutt was inspired to rename the mix after attending a minstrel show during which a popular song titled ‘Old Aunt Jemima’ was performed by men in blackface, one of whom was depicting a slave mammy of plantation South.

In 1890 Aunt Jemima Manufacturing Company replaced Pearl Milling Company. Chris Underwood’s brother Bert was responsible for registering the Aunt Jemima trademark.

The Pearl Company had been in financial trouble and their owners were forced, in 1893 to sell their new pancake formula to a larger corporation owned by R.G Davis of Chicago.

Davis promoted both product and image; in the same year the company hired 59 year-old Nancy Green, and African American woman who was a cook for a Chicago judge, to dress in gingham, apron and head bandana to demonstrate their new Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix.

The Davis Company prospered and by 1910, the name of Aunt Jemima was known in all 48 states and had attained such popularity that many people tried to infringe on the trademark rights.

In 1914, the image of Aunt Jemima was so popular that the company was renamed the Aunt Jemima Mill Company.

In 1926 Aunt Jemima Mills Company was sold to Quaker Oats Company for over four million dollars. The image of ‘Aunt Jemima’ remained on the packages.
History of Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix

Alex Foods

Sonoran immigrants, Alex Morales Sr. began selling his wife’s homemade tamales in Anaheim in 1906 from a horse-drawn wagon.

Morales, a ditch digger by trade grew the concept into a restaurant. The Alex Tamale Company opened this factory in the 1920s at 415 South Olive Street.

Alex Tamale Co. factory

The family run company was finally incorporated as Alex Foods in 1951. As the company came to be known, grew to become a major manufacturer of more than 200 premium prepared foods.

By the 1950s, Alex Foods had a fleet of thirty-two shiny trucks that delivered their tamales and other food products across Southern California, along with distributing produce that wasn’t Mexican food.

Albert Morales, a vice-president in the company, worked for the family business until well past normal retirement age.  Today the company became part of Don Miguel Mexican Foods.
Alex Foods

Wenger Manufacturing Company

Joe (born 1906) and Louis Wenger (born 1908) founded Wenger Manufacturing, Inc in Sabetha, Kansas, in 1935. Later it was named Wenger Mixer Company. The company today designs and manufactures industrial food, pet food and aquatic feed processing machinery for a world market.

The Wenger brothers- sons of Swiss immigrants and the youngest of nine brothers, born at the turn of the century, grew up in a farm near Lamar, Missouri.

In 1927 Wengers buy the Saunder Custom Feed Mill in Sabetha, Kansas then rename it Wenger Brother Feed Mill.

Its main service is the custom grinding of livestock and poultry feed for farmers, it also mixed concentrates and minerals into the farmer’s feed crops to make the ration more nutritious.  The Wenger feed mill was soon being utilized as a testing-ground for the novel process machinery being created by the ambitious young brothers.

In 1935 Joe and Louis Wenger build their first mixer for sale to their first customer, Morrow Milling Co. of Carthage Missouri.

In 1948, Wenger builds its first extruder, a novel machine designed to blend molasses with dry feedstuffs and extrude that product in pelleted form.

Until 1941, all equipment was manufactured in a barn located near the rural homes of the brothers.

By 1971 the international market exceeds 30% of Wenger’s sales and Wenger International is formed to manage and service foreign sales for the company.

Second generation single and twin screw extruders were introduced in mid 1970s. In the 1980s, Wenger Manufacturing Company began manufacturing twin-screw extruders which has originated in Europe.
Wenger Manufacturing Company

Beatrice Foods Company

George Everett Haskell, a bookkeeper with the Fremont Butter and Egg Company purchased the company’s Nebraska plant when the company folded in 1891. It was the vision of Haskell and his successors, principally Clinton H. Haskell and William G. Karnes that guided them in building Beatrice Foods Company into one of the world’s leading companies.

Late in 1894, Haskell began churning butter at Beatrice and using their own delivery wagons to distributive creamery butter in the special protective packages that they has devised to grocery stores, restaurants and hotels.

He renamed it the Beatrice Creamery Company. In 1901 the company adopted the trademark Meadow Gold for its butter.

The company is reported to have been the first company to package butter in sealed cartons. In 1931 Beatrice was the first company to advertise its ice cream products nationally.

The company bought Blue Valley in 1939, moved to Chicago from Beatrice, Nebraska in 1913 and established its headquarters at 1526 South State Street.

In attempt to expand its product line, the company purchased La Choy, a producer of Asian Foods, in 1943.

In 1984 Beatrice Food purchased Hunt-Wesson Inc, a large food products company in California. In the same year, Beatrice launched its first ad campaign, stamping its name on every product within the company. The ads, created by Marsteller, of Chicago, Illinois, showed Beatrice’s products and then introduced the company with the tag-line, ‘Beatrice. You’ve known us all along’.

Beatrice has become a slimmer and more focused company in the early 2000s. In 1987, Lewis and TLC bought Beatrice Foods for $985 million and repositioning it as a food conglomerate with sixty-four company in thirty-one countries.

By January 1993, Beatrice Food’s annual revenue exceeds $2.5 billion.
Beatrice Foods Company

History of Famous Amos

In October 1974, Wally Amos, a talent agent with the William Morris Agency had grown so discouraged that he thought of getting out of the business - but he had no idea what to do next. One day, in a visit to a recording studio he brought his trademark batch of cookies.

A secretary at the company, B. J Gilmore commented that his cookies were exceptionally good and suggested that they go to business together selling his chocolate chip cookies.

In March 1975, he opened the Amos Chocolate Cookie Company on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

He called his brand ‘Famous Amos' and his was the nation’s first gourmet chocolate chip cookie store.

Cookies from his first store were terrible. Amos explains in his book The Cookie Never Crumbles, until someone pointed out that he had gotten the sides of his new kitchen scale reversed and so was using way too much flour.

Amos soon became as famous as the cookies he produced. His own growing celebrity status was aided by the photograph of himself, front and center in the cookie packaging.

His cookie was simply a variation of the classes Nestlé’s Toll House Cookie, but Amos was a good promoter with plenty of big-name contacts who helped him promote his store and his products.

By the early 1980s, Wally Amos had accumulated a personal fortune of more than $80 million.

Although he made millions in his business, by 1985 the company began to report a loss in revenue, Rather than lose the company, Amos sold the controlling share to ten Bass Brothers of Fort Worth, Texas. Wally Amos gave up the right to use his name commercially and became an employee of the company.

President Baking Company acquired Famous Amos in 1992 and in 1998 it was acquired by the Keebler Company, which in turn was acquired by Kellogg’s in 2001.
History of Famous Amos

The Frito Company

In 1932 a San Antonio promoter named Elmer Doolin paid $100 for the recipe and the seven-outlet sales territory of a corn chip he’d happened to taste in a café.

Corn chips, which are derived from corn masa like that used in tortillas, were originally developed by Gustavo Olguin.

Doolin set up a production facility in his mom’s kitchen and sold the chips out of the back of his model T.

He was successful in selling them and he quickly opened a factory in San Antonio, Texas. In 1933, the fritos production was increased by designing a ‘hammer’ pres and the company continued to expand.

Within a year Doolin moved to Dallas where his company has remained ever since, because it was a better distribution center and he quickly became the snack food lord of the Southwest.

Frito adding potato chips to its line-up by buying out existing firms, including Crispie of Stockton, California, Nicolay-Dancey of Detroit and the Noss family’s Num Num of Cleveland.

In 1945, The Frito Sales Company was established, which separated sales from production activities. Expansion by the Frito National Company continued with issues of six franchises in 1945.

In 1961 the Frito Company merged with the Lay Company maker of Lay’s potato chips to become the giant Frito-Lay, which dominates the $14 billion snack food market. In 1965, Pepsi-Cola merged with Frito-Lay to form PepsiCo.
The Frito Company

Business history of pancakes in United States

The prototypical American pancakes probably arrived with the earliest English and Dutch settlers, whose pancake traditions dated back to at least the fifteenth century and possibly as far back as prehistoric times.

New Englanders called them flapjacks in honor of the custom of flipping them in the pan with a flick of the wrist.

Pancakes became signature dishes at some casual restaurant chains. In 1889 International House of Pancake was launched in a Los Angeles suburb.

The popularity of pancake restaurants or pancake houses serve packages to suit every taste and time of day, from sweet to savory from breakfast to dinner.

Pancakes became part of fast food breakfast menus in the 1970s, when Jim Delligati, an early MacDonald’s franchisee in Pittsburgh began serving a simple breakfast menu, which included pancakes.

In 1899 Chris L. Rutt and Charles G. Underwood introduced the first ready-mixed commercial food product, which was later renamed Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix.

In the late 1930s, Henri Charpentier, a French chef, brought the recipe for his crepe Suzette with him when he immigrated to the United States.

He is credited with popularizing the French pancake in America. At first they were served with butter, sugar and citrus juice or liqueur. But Americans soon were using maple-flavored syrup and filling them with savory fruits or even chocolate chips.

In 2003 MacDonald’s introduced the McGriddle, which is bacon or a pork sausage wrapped in pancake with syrup.

Later Burger King introduced the Ultimate Breakfast Platter, composed of scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausage, a biscuits and three pancakes with syrup.
Business history of pancakes in United States

Keebler Company

Godfrey Keebler opened a neighborhood bakery in Philadelphia in 1853. The bakery grew quickly, and he brought his sons into the business.

By the beginning of the twentieth century Keebler products were distributed regionally and it slowly expanded its operations.

In 1924 Keebler joined with other bakeries to form the United Biscuit Company which was a federation of cracker and cookie manufacturers, in order to compete effectively with the rival National Biscuit Company (Nabisco)

By 1944 United Biscuit consisted of sixteen bakeries located from Philadelphia to Salt Lake City.

In 1966 Keebler Company became the official corporate name and the brand name for all of its products. By the 1990s, Keebler was the second-largest manufacturer of cookies and crackers in America.

Keebler’s brands name includes Cheez-It, Chips Deluxe, Famous Amos, Fudge Shoppe, Keebler, Plantation, Sunshine and Town House.

Keebler was acquired by the Kellogg Company in 2001. Today The Keebler Company remains the largest cookie and cracker manufacturer in the United States.
Keebler Company

Loft Candy Company

Loft Candy Company was founded by the London-born William Loft (1828-1919) in Manhattan after he immigrated to New York in the 1850s.

At first, he and his wife crafted handmade chocolates in their kitchen before opening a chocolate shop Canal Street in 1860. In 1919, they moved to the large plant building at 40th Avenue and Vernon Boulevard.

By 1920 Loft Candy Company became the largest retail company in United States and the company also the first retail candy store chain in America. Based in Long Island City, New York, the Loft Candy Company was a publicly held company with a $13 million candy and restaurant chain.

The company manufactured its own candies, syrups and beverages.

In 1930 the company acquired other candy retailer, the Happiness Stores and Mirror Stores in New Jersey. The combined operation owned 175 candy shop, soda fountain and tearooms.

The Loft Candy Company acquired Pepsi-Cola in 1931 and it was later merged into PepsiCo.

By 1941 Philadelphia business man Albert M. Greenfield (1887-1967) had acquired Loft Company through his business, the City Stores Corporation. He expanded Loft’s operation outside the New York area.

By 1985 it was down to just 40 stores in the New York area. The smaller company did not proper, went out of business and by the 1990s all the shops had closed.
Loft Candy Company