1938 - Food And Drink

Food And Drink

Birds Eye Frozen Foods Ltd. is established in England as a joint venture of General Foods and Unilever (see Wisbech, 1937). Lack of cold storage and refrigerated transport limit the marketing of frozen foods initially, but Birds Eye will grow to dominate the United Kingdom's frozen-food business. British farmers will buy seeds from the company to permit uniformity of strain and quality, Unilever will own a majority interest by 1943, by 1946 there will be 100 shops stocking Birds Eye products produced in six plants (at Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Kirkby, Brimsby, Hull, and Eastbourne), and by 1948 there will be 900 such shops.

Dewey and Almy in Boston develop the Cryovac deep-freezing method of food preservation (see Birdseye, 1923).

A can of meat put up in 1824 is discovered and its contents fed to test rats with no observable ill effects.

Teflon has a low coefficient of friction that will make it popular as a coating for nonstick frying pans and other cooking utensils.

Mott's Apple Juice is introduced by the Duffy-Mott Co. (see Sunsweet prune juice, 1933). The company uses juice from Courtland, Golden Delicious, Ida Reds, MacIntosh, Rhode Island Greening, Rome Beauty, Twenty Ounce, York Imperial, and more than a dozen other varieties for its products.

Nescafé is introduced in Switzerland by Nestlé, whose management has been asked by the Brazilian government to help find a solution to Brazil's coffee surpluses (see G. Washington, 1909). Nestlé has spent 8 years in research to develop the instant coffee product (see Instant Maxwell House, 1942).

Grocery chain founder B. H. Kroger dies of a heart attack at his Cape Cod summer home in Wianno July 21 at age 78. When he retired 6 years ago he had 4,844 stores scattered about thousands of Midwestern communities and supplied by his 13 bakeries; three packing plants; his own plants for roasting coffee, blending tea and spices; and his own candy factory.