Please Note:
The following history of the Beech-Nut Company was provided by the Beech-Nut Company itself.
History of Beech-Nut
“On February 7, 1891, a company composed of David Zielley, Jr., Bartlett Arkell, W. H. Lipe, John D. Zielley, and R. P. Lipe, was incorporated as the Imperial Packing Co., with a capital stock of $10,000.” (Bon Jour, December 1901)
The Zielleys and Raymond Lipe left the company a few months later. “The two men who have been at the helm from the very launching of the business--who have piloted it through the storms of adversity when it was weak and looked insignificant bucking up against such giant concerns as Armour, Swift, etc., are Mr. Bartlett Arkell and Mr. Walter H. Lipe...” (Bon Jour, December 1901) Mr. Lipe served as Vice President until shortly before his death in 1921. Mr. Arkell continued as President until 1941.
“For the first seven years the products of the Imperial Packing Co., were principally ham and bacon in bulk, with fancy pail lard as a side line.” Bon Jour, December 1901) The recipe used to smoke the hams after they were cured was based on one that Walter and Raymond’s father, Ephraim Lipe, had formulated. The company’s products were known as “Beech-Nut” brand from the beginning. The name Beech-Nut was chosen to evoke a feeling of the wholesomeness, freshness, and purity of the country.
As the Industrial Revolution of the mid-19th century brought more people to urban areas to work and live, the concentration of population was located further away from the farmland. It was rarely possible for workers to bring food from rural areas for their own needs. Indeed, if food was available, it was difficult to keep or process as refrigeration was still in its infancy, and the work week occupied six days of every seven. New packing and processing companies were formed to fill this need and the Imperial Packing Company was one of them.
“In the beginning this concern had only one smokehouse two stories high, but in 1893, they had two smokehouses three stories high. In 1894, two more three story smokehouses were built, and in 1897, four more were added, making eight in all, the present smoking capacity.” (Bon Jour, December 1901)
In 1898, “the company was reorganized and the capital was increased to $150,000. The name was also changed from the Imperial Packing Co. to the Beech-Nut Packing Co.” (Bon Jour, December 1901)
Once the company had built and secured its reputation, it was only natural that thoughts of expansion occurred to Lipe and Arkell. They did this by taking one of their original products, bacon, and marketing it in a new form -- sliced bacon. This was soon followed by sliced beef. “In 1899, the first year of the sliced business, 529,000 packages were sold; in the second year, 746,000, and in the third year, over a million. The making capacity of the plant at present is 10,000 jars per day. The company’s latest product is a grape jam made after a recipe of Mrs. E. B. Burnap (Bartlett Arkell’s sister, Mary), and it is known as ‘Beech-Nut Jam, Mollie’s make’.
“Their average sale for the past ten weeks has been $7,500 per week which would aggregate nearly $400,000 a year. One hundred and twenty-five persons are employed in getting out these goods.” (Bon Jour, December 1901)
A fire destroyed the smokehouses in February 1903, but the firm persevered. “We expect to show just as much enterprise in rebuilding our plant as we had played in securing the best inventions in the way of pushing the trade.” (Bartlett Arkell, March 1903) A new product, peanut butter, was introduced to the American public in 1904, despite the fact that peanuts did not become an important commercial crop in the United States until 1917. Other products that followed in rapid succession were: baked beans (1906), catsup and vinegar (1908), tomato puree (1909), Oscar’s Sauce (1910), and peppermint gum (1911).
The increasing diversity of their products and the staff needed to process the items and handle the paperwork soon led to an expansion of the company’s facilities. Buildings adjacent to the company’s original plant had been acquired to handle the increase in business. After the 1903 fire, buildings were constructed to meet the requirements of the firm’s products. After the smokehouses were built, a boiler building (1904), packing building (1905), warehouse (1907), peanut butter building (1909), an office building (1910), and the gum building (1912) were constructed.
The company’s physical expansion was not without its problems. “Unless the people of Canajoharie open their homes and make use of their spare rooms by taking boarders, one of two propositions confront the Beech-Nut Packing Company, which concern is clamoring for help--girl help. They will either have to build a boarding house or move the industry to some other town.” (Herald, Gloversville, October 21, 1907)
It was also during this period that the firm began to expand outside the village. The company began construction of its Rochester plant in December 1912, so the tomato crop could be processed close to the source to ensure the freshness of the product. The company also leased space at the Bush Terminal building in Brooklyn in 1912. The previous year they had purchased the Fairmont Box Company in West Virginia, which supplied them with corrugated boxes.
It was not until the end of World War I that the company began major construction again, although the company had added office and warehouse space to the 1910 building fronting Church Street, after filling in the Erie Canal. In 1919, the conserve building was added as an extension of the peanut butter building, and a new building was erected for macaroni products. A large facility was built on the western edge of the village for beverage (carbonated) production. (This building was later known as Plant #2.) In 1924, a building was constructed on the site of two earlier buildings and used for roasting coffee.
This period saw the company experiment with a variety of products, some of which were only packaged and distributed by them, such as cheeses, dates, olive oil, seafoods, and maple syrup. Other products, such as their soft drink line, were discontinued when, according to management, their product wasn’t superior to the rest on the market.
The economic conditions of the Depression and the constrictions imposed by World War II governed the company’s course during this era. Few new products were introduced. The exceptions were strained baby foods in 1931 and chopped (“junior”) foods in 1938. A line of soups was also marketed in 1938. During the war, the firm was the largest producer of Ration-K for service people fighting in Europe and Asia. Many products were discontinued during World War II when quality meat and sugar became difficult to obtain, such as bacon, biscuits, and jams. Construction at the plants was limited to small additions to existing buildings.
As the country returned to normal, the company began to expand once again. In August 1945, an excavation was begun for a two-story Personnel building adjacent to the Credit building. In 1948, a second story was added to the Credit office, thus connecting the main office and the Personnel building. The “Baby Boom” made itself felt in the early 1950s. Demand for baby food increased substantially (98% in three years) and the company broke ground in 1953 for a two story addition northwest of the Personnel building, a new four story building along the creek, and a 160,000 square foot warehouse east of the creek.
At the western edge of the village, expansion of confection facilities had also taken place. In 1946, the gum base building was constructed to process the chicle into the base from which gum was made.
A major event in the company’s history occurred in 1956 when the Beech-Nut Packing Company merged with Life Savers, the first time in the company’s history that control went out of the village and a non-village resident was President. The new company was known as Beech-Nut Life Savers, Inc. Since that time, acquisitions and mergers with other companies have accounted for much of the growth of the company. For instance, in the early 1960s Martinson Coffee, Tetley Tea, and Bustelo Roasting Coffee were purchased. Other companies that were acquired were: Dobbs House (restaurants), Landers Co. (cosmetics), Table Talk Pies, and Wilbur Chocolates.
In 1968, the company merged with Squibb, Inc., a pharmaceutical firm, formerly a division of Olin-Mathieson. The parent company, Squibb Life Savers, sold the baby food part of the company to the Baker Corporation in 1973. This new company became known as Baker Beech-Nut, becoming Beech-Nut Foods Corporation in 1977. The coffee and tea companies, Landers Cosmetics and the like were also sold by Squibb during this period in the early 1970s.
Both companies--Squibb Life Savers and Beech-Nut Foods Corporation--developed new product lines in the 1970s. Baby foods with as few additives (sugar and salt) as possible were introduced to mothers. Children were delighted by Life Savers “Bubble Yum” and adults by “Carefree” sugarless gums. Beech-Nut sold its cereal line to Milupa, a West German firm, in 1976.
The decade of the 1980s brought further changes to the companies that originated more than 100 years ago in Canajoharie. Beech-Nut Foods Corporation was purchased in November 1979 by Nestle S.A., of Vevey, Switzerland. Life Savers, Inc. was sold by Squibb and became part of Nabisco Brands on January 1, 1982. Beech-Nut’s name was changed to Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation in February 1982. In 1984, Beech-Nut introduced the Stages baby food concept to guide and simplify consumer choices. Also in 1984, double-branding was introduced (examples: Yellow Cling Peaches, Bartlett Pears, Golden Delicious Apples, Chiquita Bananas). In 1985, all chemically modified starches were removed from all baby foods. Around 1985, Beech-Nut brought back its cereal line from Milupa.
In 1989, Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation was purchased by Ralston Purina Company. In 1991, the San Jose (West Coast) manufacturing plant was closed to improve operating efficiency. In 1991, Table Time toddler foods, and Baby’s First water were introduced.
On May 18, 1991, Beech-Nut Nutrition celebrated its 100th Birthday. A “Centennial Parade” was held and an estimated 3,000 people lined the streets of Canajoharie to view the two hour parade. Special events started in the morning and continued until midnight. The Beech-Nut sign once again blazed above the plant after standing in darkness for nearly twenty years. A special Beech-Nut year book was published to commemorate the event.
In 1992, baby juice in 32 oz. clear plastic bottles was introduced in grocery stores. In 1993, introduced double-branded dry fruit cereals (examples: Rice with Golden Delicious Apples, Oatmeal with Chiquita Bananas, Rice with Chiquita Bananas). In 1994, Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation, along with Ralston Foods (the cereal business), Bremner Biscuits, Keystone and Breckenridge ski resorts and the Coupon Redemption business were spun-off to form a new company--Ralcorp Holdings, Inc.
In September of 1998, Beech-Nut was sold to The Milnot Company, a privately held company based in St. Louis, Missouri. Milnot, founded in 1912, manufactures branded and private-label food products, including Milnot evaporated and sweetened condensed milk, Chilli Man chili, and salsa. The company operates plants in Litchfield, Illinois; Seneca, Missouri; and Denver, Colorado.
