1906 - Food And Drink

Food And Drink

Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Co. is incorporated February 19 by W. K. (Will Keith) Kellogg, now 46, and St. Louis insurance man Charles D. Bolin (see 1902). Bolin puts up $35,000 to start the company, whose stock is owned largely by Kellogg's brother J. H., even though the younger Kellogg has his signature printed on each package. W. K. has bought commercial rights to the cereal from his brother, added malt, sugar, and salt to improve its taste, and wraps the box in waxed paper to keep the flakes fresh. He runs the company and devotes two-thirds of his budget to advertising (see 1907).

C. W. Post perfects his Post Toasties corn flakes (see 1904; 1914).

James D. Dole's Hawaiian Pineapple Co. announces August 1 that it has made a net profit of $30,489 (see 1904). The Oahu Railway and Land Co. extends its narrow-gauge line from Waipahu to Wahiawa so that pineapples can move to town by rail, and Dole is instrumental in persuading the American Can Co. to establish a can manufacturing plant in Honolulu. He takes an option on five acres of O.R. & L. land in the Iwilei district and makes plans to move his cannery to Honolulu (see 1908).

A-1 Sauce is introduced to the United States from England by G. F. Heublein & Bro. of Hartford, Conn. A chef to George IV created the sauce in the 1820s (see Smirnoff, 1939).

E. A. Stuart's Carnation Milk adopts "The milk from contented cows" as its slogan (see 1899). Stuart has gone to Chicago and told an advertising copywriter about the beauties of Washington State, inspiring her to create the line.

The "hot dog" gets its name from a cartoon by Chicago cartoonist Thomas Aloysius "Tad" Dorgan, 29, who shows a dachshund inside a frankfurter bun (see Feltman, 1867). Vendors employed by English-born caterer Harry M. (Magely) Stevens have been selling frankfurters at New York's Polo Grounds since 1901. His franks have been called "pigs-in-a-blanket," but Stevens will soon be known as the "hot dog king," and he will eventually gain rights to operate Madison Square Garden's dining room, employing vendors to serve sports fans in the Garden itself (see Nathan's, 1916). Britons continue to call sausages "bangers."

Sales of Jell-O reach nearly $1 million (see 1899). Francis Woodward once offered to sell the brand for $35 but now stops making Grain-O to devote all efforts of his Genesee Pure Food Co. to producing Jell-O.

Planters Nut and Chocolate Co. is founded at Wilkes-Barre, Pa., by Italian-born entrepreneur Amedeo Obici, 19, who arrived in America 7 years ago without money or English but with the knowledge that he had an uncle somewhere in Pennsylvania. He found the uncle, worked at his fruit stand in exchange for room and board, eventually bought a $4.50 peanut roaster, improved it by adding pulleys that turn the nuts automatically and prevent them from burning, and has expanded his peanut stand into a store and restaurant. In partnership with his future brother-in-law Mario Peruzzi, 31, he starts a firm that by 1912 will be using so many raw peanuts that Obici will open his own shelling plant and buy direct from farmers to avoid being squeezed by middlemen (see Mr. Peanut, 1916).