1898 - Food And Drink

Food And Drink

U.S. food prices (as reported in the Emporia Gazette): steak 10¢/lb., a frying chicken 15¢, flour $2/cwt, sugar 5¢/lb. Sugar prices soar following the outbreak of the Spanish-American War.

Sanitas corn flakes are introduced by Sanitas Nut Food Co., set up at Battle Creek, Mich., by J. H. Kellogg with his brother Will Keith (see Granose, 1895). Sold by mail order, the world's first corn flakes quickly turn rancid and have little acceptance in a market oriented toward wheat cereals, but the Kelloggs persevere and will call their company the Sanitas Food Co. beginning in 1900 (see 1902).

Henry D. Perky promotes Shredded Wheat as "the perfect food" and embarks on a lecture tour (see 1895). "From the most abject physical wreck, I have succeeded, by the use of naturally organized food, in reorganizing my body into perfectly healthy condition," says Perky (who will die in 1906 at age 66; see 1900).

Joseph Campbell Preserve Co. adds Vegetable to its line of condensed soups (see 1897). Campbell's Soups sell for 10¢ per can and appear for the first time with red and white labels whose colors have been suggested by Cornell football uniforms (see 1904).

National Biscuit Co. is formed by a consolidation of New York Biscuit, American Biscuit and Manufacturing, United States Baking, and United States Biscuit. Massachusetts-born executive Adolphus W. Green, 54, heads the new company, whose 114 bakeries comprise 90 percent of all major U.S. commercial bakeries. Seeking a way to surmount the anonymity of the cracker barrel seen in every grocery shop, Green decides to concentrate the company's efforts behind a flaky soda cracker, retains N. W. Ayer & Son as his advertising agency, and is advised by Ayer's Henry N. McKinney that a manufacturer must "insure his future sales by adopting a trade name and trade dress which will belong exclusively to him by trademark and trade right." McKinney suggests the name Uneeda Cracker, Green changes it to Uneeda Biscuit, and the name is registered December 27 with the U.S. Patent Office (see 1900).

Tea magnate Thomas J. Lipton converts all his holdings into a huge limited liability company and turns his attention to yachting; now 48 and worth an estimated £10 million ($50 million), he will finance the America's Cup challenger Shamrock next year and four more Shamrocks between 1901 and 1930, none of them successful 1909).

Annual British tea consumption averages 10 pounds per capita, up from two pounds in 1797 (see 1869). Black teas from India and Ceylon have long since gained dominance over Chinese green teas, but many connoisseurs still prefer China's green teas, especially gunpowder and hysson, and Chinese black teas, notably keemun or congou from North China (also called English breakfast tea).

Reformer Frances Willard dies of influenza at New York February 18 at age 58, having seen the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) become a major political power.

U.S. troops awaiting transport to Cuba in the Spanish-American War enjoy Cuba Libres (made of rum and Coca-Cola by a bartender at the Tampa Bay Hotel in Tampa); workers in Cuba's Daiquiri iron mines will soon enjoy a cocktail called the Daiquiri (made of rum, lime juice, and sugar).

Pepsi-Cola is introduced by New Bern, N.C., pharmacist Caleb Bradham, 31, who has been mixing the fountain drink since 1893, using ingredients that include kola nut extract, rare oils, and vanilla, but no pepsin; he has paid a Newark, N.J., competitor $100 for the man's Pep name (see 1903).