1958 - Food And Drink

Food And Drink

Jif Peanut Butter is introduced nationwide in August by Procter & Gamble, which continues to produce Big Top Peanut Butter but will use its marketing skills to make Jif the top-selling brand, ahead of Skippy and Peter Pan.

Rice-A-Roni is introduced by San Francisco pasta maker Vincent DeDomenico, whose Italian-born father, Domenico, came to America in 1890 at age 19, moved to California 5 years later, and started out selling vegetables in 1912. He built a macaroni factory and got his four sons to sell 25- and 50-pound boxes of the family's Golden Grain pasta to grocers from Sausalito to Eureka in the 1930s. Vincent watched his sister-in-law mix a can of Swanson's chicken broth with vermicelli and rice to produce a kind of pilaf, experimented by substituting dried soup for canned, and added the seasoned rice-and-pasta recipe to the side of one of his pasta packages. National distribution of Rice-A-Roni will begin in 1961.

Chicken Ramen is introduced by Nissin Food Products of Japan, founded at Osaka August 25 by entrepreneur Momofuku Ando, 48, to make and market the world's first instant ramen (Chinese noodle) product. Ando traveled about his ravaged country after World War II, found few noodle shops where working-class people could buy quick, cheap meals, and saw a need for an easily transportable noodle package. He started a food-trading and wholesaling company, has developed Chicken Ramen during a lull in business, and renames his company Nissin Food. A bag (or pillow pack, or brick/block) type product, Chicken Ramen consists of quick-fried noodles that are placed in a bowl along with a packet of soup seasoning; boiling water is added, the bowl is covered, and in 3 minutes the dish is ready to eat. The product meets with instant success, despite the fact that it sells for six times the price of fresh ramen noodles at any Japanese "ramen house" restaurant, and more than 10 other companies soon have competitive products on the market.

Cocoa Puffs breakfast food, introduced by General Mills, is 43 percent sugar (see 1954; 1959). Cocoa Krispies breakfast food, introduced by Kellogg, is 45.9 percent sugar (see Special K, 1955; Concentrate, 1959).

Sweet 'N Low sugarless sweetener is introduced by Cumberland Packing Co. of Brooklyn, N.Y., which uses saccharin in place of sugar, providing the same amount of sweetness without the 30 calories of sugar. Founder Benjamin Eisenstadt, now 51, opened a tea-bag factory after World War II, invented the modern sugar packet after his wife remarked that restaurant sugar bowls seemed unsanitary, had his idea stolen by sugar company executives (he naively showed them how he made the packets), packs his new granulated product in bright pink packets, and gives it a name derived from a musical rendition of an Alfred Lord Tennyson poem.

Unilever's Thomas J. Lipton division introduces Instant Tea, a powder designed to be mixed with ice water (see 1946; White Rose Redi-Tea, 1953). It is slow to gain acceptance, despite the general popularity of iced tea (see Snapple, 1987).

Beech-Nut Life Savers board chairman and American Broadcasting Co. founder Edward J. Noble dies at his Greenwich, Conn., home December 28 at age 76, leaving $3 million to his wife and daughter. He has established a $2 million trust fund for his daughter and left the residue of his estate to the Edward John Noble Foundation, which makes substantial contributions to support education.