1929 - Food And Drink

Food And Drink

Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill abolishes Britain's 325-year-old tea duty April 15, knocking 4p off the price of a pound of tea.

General Mills is created by a merger of the 63-year-old Minneapolis milling firm Washburn, Crosby with 26 other U.S. milling companies. General Mills is the world's largest miller.

Standard Brands is created through a merger engineered by J. P. Morgan Co. that combines Chase and Sanborn, Fleischmann, and Royal Baking Powder, which has recently introduced Royal Gelatin desserts to compete with Jell-O. Royal Baking Powder has acquired Chase and Sanborn in February, Fleischmann has acquired Royal a few months later, and the trucks that have been delivering perishable yeast to grocery stores twice each week now carry coffee as well (the coffee is advertised as "dated" to suggest freshness). About 86 percent of Standard Brands profits come from yeast.

General Foods is created in July by a renaming of the 34-year-old Postum Co., which has acquired Jell-O, Minute Tapioca, Swans Down cake flour (Igleheart Bros.), Hellmann's Mayonnaise, Log Cabin Syrup, Walter Baker Chocolate, Franklin Baker Coconut, Calumet Baking Powder, Maxwell House Coffee (Cheek-Neal), and rights to Sanka Coffee. A Wall Street firm has put up $20 million to finance Postum's $22 million acquisition of Clarence Birdseye's General Seafoods Co. and its quick-freezings patents (see marine resources, 1926), but it soon sells its interest to Postum Co., headed by Marjorie Merriweather Post and her stockbroker husband, E. F. Hutton.

Daniel Gerber begins selling strained baby foods through grocery stores (see 1928). Using leads supplied by mail-order customers, Gerber salesmen drive cars whose horns play "Rock-a-Bye Baby." They sell 590,000 cans in 1 year, and other food processors are inspired to enter the baby food market. Fremont Canning Co. will be renamed Gerber Products Co. in 1943 and will expand its line to include powder, plastic pants, and dishware for babies.

Rocky Road ice cream is introduced by German-born Oakland, Calif., ice cream maker William Dreyer, who arrived in America 22 years ago, went into partnership last year with local candy maker Joseph Edy, took over a small factory at 3315 Grand Avenue, has added walnuts to his chocolate ice cream (the walnuts will later be replaced with almonds), and has used his wife's sewing shears to cut marshmallows into bite-sized pieces. Dreyer and Edy will dissolve their partnership in 1947, Edy will sell the ice cream under his own name east of the Rockies, Dreyer will retire in 1953, and Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream will go on to become the largest-selling ice cream in America.

U.S. electric refrigerator sales top 800,000, up from 75,000 in 1925, as the average price of a refrigerator falls to $292, down from $600 in 1920 (see GE, 1927). The average price will fall to $169 by 1939 and the new refrigerators will use less electricity (see energy [Energy Conservation Act], 1987).

The Universal electric toaster introduced by Landers, Frary & Clark has a door that opens at the touch of a button; inside the door is the slice of bread, and the door pivots to permit toasting the second side of the bread (see Toastmaster, 1926; 1930).

The new cartoon character "Popeye" is a somewhat cowardly sailor who will soon prove to be a fighter whose prodigious strength is derived mainly from spinach, which he swallows by the canful. U.S. spinach consumption will increase by 33 percent in the next few years as children come to rate it third only to turkey and ice cream as their favorite food, and Popeye ("I'm strong to the finich 'cause I eat my spinach") will be credited with the increase (see New Yorker cartoon, 1928; agriculture, 1937).

Oscar Mayer trademarks its wieners with a yellow paper ring on every fourth wiener to break the tradition of anonymity in meat sales (see 1883). Oscar G. Mayer, the Harvard-educated founder's son, joined the firm in 1909 and will buy a packing plant at Madison, Wis., as he leads the company toward national distribution.

Former Coca-Cola president Asa G. Candler dies at Atlanta March 12 at age 77. Coca-Cola has gross sales of $39 million and adopts the slogan "The Pause That Refreshes;" Colorado brewer Adolph Coors jumps to his death from the window of a Virginia Beach, Va., hotel room June 5 at age 82, furious at the state and federal Prohibition laws that have stopped him from making beer. His family will revive Coors Beer in 1933, but will remain fiercely opposed to government interference in business.

7-Up has its beginnings in a highly carbonated lemon-lime soft drink introduced in October under the name Lithiated Lemon by Missouri-born St. Louis bottler Charles (Leiper) Grigg, 61, sells 10,500 cases of his seven-ounce bottles (see 1933).

French wines enjoy an exceptional year; the '29 vintage in all parts of the country will be remembered fondly for decades.