Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation is a
baby food
Baby food is any soft easily consumed food other than breastmilk or infant formula that is made specifically for human babies between four and six months and two years old. The food comes in many varieties and flavors that are purchased ready-mad ...
company owned by the Swiss branded consumer-goods firm
Hero Group
The Hero Group is a private, Swiss international consumer food manufacturer and marketing company, which primarily sells infant formula, baby food, jam and nutritional snack foods. In 2015, the Group generated revenues surpassing CHF 1.26 bil ...
.
History
Beech-Nut's roots go back to 1891, to the
Mohawk Valley
The Mohawk Valley region of the U.S. state of New York is the area surrounding the Mohawk River, sandwiched between the Adirondack Mountains and Catskill Mountains, northwest of the Capital District. As of the 2010 United States Census, th ...
town of
Canajoharie, New York
Canajoharie () is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in Montgomery County, New York, Montgomery County, New York (state), New York, United States. The population was 3,730 in 2010. Canajoharie is located south of the Mohawk River o ...
. Raymond P. Lipe, along with his friend John D. Zieley and their brothers, Walter H. Lipe and David Zieley, and Bartlett Arkell, founded The Imperial Packing Co. for the production of Beech-Nut ham. The product was based on the smoked hams of the Lipes' father, farmer Ephraim Lipe. The company's principal products were ham and bacon for the first seven years. The Zieleys sold their shares to the Lipe brothers in 1892.
The company was incorporated as the Beech-Nut Packing Company in 1899. Arkell was the first president of the company. In 1900, the company's sales were $200,000. Engineers from Beech-Nut patented the first
vacuum jar, with a design that included a
gasket
Some seals and gaskets
A gasket is a mechanical seal which fills the space between two or more mating surfaces, generally to prevent leakage from or into the joined objects while under compression. It is a deformable material that is used to c ...
and top that could remain intact in transit and became a standard of the industry .
During the first 25 years of the 20th century, the company expanded its product line into
peanut butter
Peanut butter is a food paste or spread made from ground, dry-roasted peanuts. It commonly contains additional ingredients that modify the taste or texture, such as salt, sweeteners, or emulsifiers. Peanut butter is consumed in many countri ...
,
jam
Jam is a type of fruit preserve.
Jam or Jammed may also refer to:
Other common meanings
* A firearm malfunction
* Block signals
** Radio jamming
** Radar jamming and deception
** Mobile phone jammer
** Echolocation jamming
Arts and entertai ...
,
pork and beans
Pork and beans is a culinary dish that uses pork and beans as its main ingredients. Numerous variations exist, usually with a more specific name, such as Fabada Asturiana, Olla podrida, or American canned pork and beans.
American canned pork a ...
,
ketchup
Ketchup or catsup is a table condiment with a sweet and tangy flavor. The unmodified term ("ketchup") now typically refers to tomato ketchup, although early recipes used egg whites, mushrooms, oysters, grapes, mussels, or walnuts, among other ...
,
chili sauce
Chili sauce and chili paste are condiments prepared with chili peppers.
Chili sauce may be hot, sweet or a combination thereof, and may differ from hot sauce in that many sweet or mild varieties exist, which is typically lacking in hot sauces. ...
,
mustard
Mustard may refer to:
Food and plants
* Mustard (condiment), a paste or sauce made from mustard seeds used as a condiment
* Mustard plant, one of several plants, having seeds that are used for the condiment
** Mustard seed, seeds of the mustard p ...
,
spaghetti
Spaghetti () is a long, thin, solid, cylindrical pasta.[spaghetti](_blank)
Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridg ...
,
macaroni
Macaroni (, Italian: maccheroni) is dry pasta shaped like narrow tubes.Oxford DictionaryMacaroni/ref> Made with durum wheat, macaroni is commonly cut in short lengths; curved macaroni may be referred to as elbow macaroni. Some home machines ...
,
marmalade
Marmalade is a fruit preserve made from the juice and peel of citrus fruits boiled with sugar and water. The well-known version is made from bitter orange. It is also made from lemons, limes, grapefruits, mandarins, sweet oranges, bergamo ...
,
caramel
Caramel ( or ) is an orange-brown confectionery product made by heating a range of sugars. It can be used as a flavoring in puddings and desserts, as a filling in bonbons, or as a topping for ice cream and custard.
The process of caramelizatio ...
,
fruit drops,
mints
A mint or breath mint is a food item often consumed as an after-meal refreshment or before business and social engagements to improve breath odor. Mints are commonly believed to soothe the stomach given their association with natural byproducts ...
,
chewing gum
Chewing gum is a soft, cohesive substance designed to be chewed without being swallowed. Modern chewing gum is composed of gum base, sweeteners, softeners/plasticizers, flavors, colors, and, typically, a hard or powdered polyol coating. Its te ...
, and
coffee
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
S ...
.
Timeline
*1891: Founded as the Imperial Packing Company.
*1910: Beech-Nut Chewing Gum line launched by director
Frank Barbour
Francis Edward Barbour (April 3, 1870 – February 4, 1948) was an American football player, coach, and businessman. He played quarterback for the Yale University football team in 1890 and 1891 and helped lead the 1891 Yale team to a perfect 13†...
*1927: Loses a trademark infringement case at the
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
against
Lorillard Tobacco Company
Lorillard Tobacco Company was an American tobacco company that marketed cigarettes under the brand names Newport, Maverick, Old Gold, Kent, True, Satin, and Max. The company had two operating segments: cigarettes and electronic cigarettes.
The ...
concerning their Beechnut chewing-tobacco brand.
*1956:
Life Savers Limited merged with Beech-Nut.
*1968: Beech-Nut Life Savers merged with Squibb (part of the
Olin Corporation
Olin Corporation is an American manufacturer of ammunition, chlorine, and sodium hydroxide. The company traces its roots to two companies, both founded in 1892: Franklin W. Olin's Equitable Powder Company and the Mathieson Alkali Works. Olin che ...
) to form the
Squibb Beech-Nut Corporation.
*1973: Part of the company that sold only baby food was sold to a group led by lawyer
Frank C. Nicholas.
*1976: Beech Nut becomes the first baby food company to remove added salt, in addition to added refined sugar, beginning the "natural" baby food movement.
*1979: Nicholas sold the baby food company to
Nestlé
Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other me ...
.
*1981:
Nabisco
Nabisco (, abbreviated from the earlier name National Biscuit Company) is an American manufacturer of cookies and snacks headquartered in East Hanover, New Jersey. The company is a subsidiary of Illinois-based Mondelēz International.
Nabisco's ...
acquired Life Savers (which includes the Beech-Nut candy line) from the E.R. Squibb Corporation.
*1985: Beech-Nut began testing its products' ingredients for environmental contaminants, such as heavy metals and pesticides.
*1987: Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation paid
US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
2.2 million, then the largest fine issued, for violating the
Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
The United States Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (abbreviated as FFDCA, FDCA, or FD&C) is a set of laws passed by the United States Congress in 1938 giving authority to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to oversee the safety of f ...
by selling artificially flavored sugar water as
apple juice
Apple juice is a fruit juice made by the maceration and pressing of an apple. The resulting expelled juice may be further treated by enzymatic and centrifugal clarification to remove the starch and pectin, which holds fine particulate in suspe ...
.
John F. Lavery, the company's vice president for operations was convicted in criminal court and sentenced to a year and a day in jail;
Niels L. Hoyvald, the president of the company, also convicted, served six months of community service. Each of them also paid a $100,000 fine.
*1989:
Ralston Purina
Ralston Purina Company was a St. Louis, Missouri,–based American conglomerate with substantial holdings in animal feed, food, pet food, consumer products, and entertainment. On December 12, 2001, it merged with Swiss food-giant Nestlé's Fri ...
acquired Beech-Nut from Nestlé.
*1998: Milnot Holding Corporation, one of the portfolio of companies owned by the
private equity
In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a ty ...
investment firm
Madison Dearborn Partners
Madison Dearborn Partners (MDP) is an American private equity firm specializing in leveraged buyouts of privately held or publicly traded companies, or divisions of larger companies; recapitalizations of family-owned or closely held companies; ba ...
, acquired Beech-Nut from
Ralcorp Holdings (a spin-off of
Ralston Purina
Ralston Purina Company was a St. Louis, Missouri,–based American conglomerate with substantial holdings in animal feed, food, pet food, consumer products, and entertainment. On December 12, 2001, it merged with Swiss food-giant Nestlé's Fri ...
). A potential merger with H.J. Heinz Co. was successfully challenged by the Federal Trade Commission and never consummated.
*2002: Beech-Nut becomes the first baby food manufacturer to produce a line of baby food with
DHA DHA, Dha and dha may refer to:
Chemicals
* Docosahexaenoic acid, a 22:6 omega-3 fatty acid
* Dehydroandrosterone, an endogenous androgenic steroid
* Dehydroascorbic acid, an oxidized form of ascorbic acid
* Dehydroacetic acid, a pyrone derivati ...
and
ARA
ARA may refer to:
Media and the arts
* American-Romanian Academy of Arts and Sciences
* '' ArtistiÄŤka Radna Akcija'', compilation album released in former Yugoslavia
* Associate of the Royal Academy, denoting membership in the British Royal Aca ...
, two essential fatty acids found naturally in
breast milk
Breast milk (sometimes spelled as breastmilk) or mother's milk is milk produced by mammary glands located in the breast of a human female. Breast milk is the primary source of nutrition for newborns, containing fat, protein, carbohydrates ( lacto ...
.
*2005: Madison Dearborn sold Milnot, and Beech-Nut along with it, to the Swiss branded consumer-goods firm
Hero Group
The Hero Group is a private, Swiss international consumer food manufacturer and marketing company, which primarily sells infant formula, baby food, jam and nutritional snack foods. In 2015, the Group generated revenues surpassing CHF 1.26 bil ...
.
*2007: Beech-Nut announced its intentions to move all of its manufacturing and corporate operations to the town of
Florida, New York, a town close to
Amsterdam, NY.
*2012:
Jeff Boutelle named CEO of Beech-Nut
*2014: Beech-Nut launched Beech-Nut Naturals, a line inspired by homemade baby food.
*2015: Beech-Nut announced a recall of approximately 1,920 pounds of baby food products after receiving a single report of a small glass piece found in a jar of its baby food.
*2017: Mark Rodriguez named CEO of Beech-Nut
*2018: Beech-Nut began its support for
No Kid Hungry
Share Our Strength is a national organization working to end childhood hunger and poverty in the United States. Share Our Strength holds culinary events, solicits individual donations, and uses social media to raise funds, which are then used to ...
, a division of
Share Our Strength
Share Our Strength is a national organization working to end childhood hunger and poverty in the United States. Share Our Strength holds culinary events, solicits individual donations, and uses social media to raise funds, which are then used to ...
, which works to end childhood hunger in the United States. From 2018 to 2023, Beech-Nut will have donated over 6 million meals to kids and families.
*2019: Beech-Nut co-founded the Baby Food Council, alongside academic, government, and NGO partners to take on the challenge of reducing heavy metals in young children’s food. Founding members were Plum Organics, Cornell University, Environmental Defense Fund, Gerber Products Company, The Hain Celestial Group (Earth’s Best), Happy Family Organics, and Healthy Babies Bright Futures. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration served as technical advisors.
*2020: Dianne Jacobs named CEO of Beech-Nut.
*2022: Beech-Nut says they test every ingredient lot it receives for up to 255 environmental contaminants.
References
External links
* {{Official website, http://www.beechnut.com
* ''The Story of a Pantry Shelf: An Outline History of Grocery Specialties''. New York:
Butterick Publishing Co., 1925.
An excerpt about Beech-Nut from
The Story of a Pantry Shelf', via the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
website
Beech-Nut and Life Savers in Canada from an
Industry Canada
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED; french: Innovation, Sciences et DĂ©veloppement Ă©conomique Canada; french: ISDE, label=none)''Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada'' is the applied title under the Federal I ...
website
Frank C. Nicholas biography 1970s-era co-owner of Beech-Nut
Milnot Holding CorporationMadison Dearborn Partners
Condiment companies of the United States
Companies based in New York (state)
American companies established in 1899
Food and drink companies established in 1899
1899 establishments in New York (state)
Private equity portfolio companies
American brands
Montgomery County, New York
Baby food manufacturers