1924 | Food And Drink
Food And Drink
Continental Baking Co. is incorporated with headquarters at Chicago to manage a sprawl of nearly 100 plants that produce bread and cake under dozens of different labels. Created by a merger of United Bakeries and other companies, Continental will become the leading U.S. bakery firm (see Wonder Bread, Hostess Cakes, 1927).
Thirty percent of U.S. bread is baked at home, down from 70 percent in 1910.
Wheaties is introduced by Washburn, Crosby Co., whose advertising will soon promote the wheat-flake cereal (4.7 percent sugar) as "the breakfast of champions" (see 1921; General Mills, 1929).
The Episcle is patented by Frank Epperson, who will license the patent next year to the New York-based Joe Lowe Corp., founded in 1902 by food processor Lowe, now 41 (see 1923). Lowe will market the item under the name Popsicle and rename his company Popsicle Corp., Epperson will earn royalties on more than 60 million Popsicles by 1928, he will create the twin Popsicle in the 1930s, and Good Humor Corp. will later acquire rights to the "frozen ice on a stick" after Epperson has invented the Fudgsicle, Creamsicle, and Dreamsicle, and by the end of the century Americans will be consuming more than 1.2 billion Popsicles per year.
Lower cocoa prices enable Hershey Chocolate to increase the weight of its standard nickel bar from 1 oz. to 1 3/8 oz. (see 1930).
Soviet Russia repeals a 10-year-old prohibition against drinking alcoholic beverages (the law has been widely flouted).
Distillers Corp., Ltd., is founded by Canadian bootlegger Samuel Bronfman, 33, and his brother Allan, 28, who borrow the name of Britain's 47-year-old Distillers Co., Ltd., and build their first distillery at Ville La Salle outside Montreal (see Distillers Corp.-Seagram, 1928).