Ken's Foods is a privately held food manufacturing company located in

Marlborough, Massachusetts Marlborough is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 41,793 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Marlborough became a prosperous industrial town in the 19th century and made the transition to high ...

. Ken's primary products are salad dressings, sauces, and marinades. The company's commercial food manufacturing divisions produce products both for retail sale and food service, including contract manufacturing for companies such as Newman's Own.

Operations

Ken's is the number-three manufacturer of salad dressings in the United States behind

Kraft Foods Kraft Foods Group, Inc. was an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate (company), conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. on October 1, 2012, and was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz on July ...

and Wish-Bone. Besides its headquarters in Marlborough, the company employs over 1,200 people in facilities located in McDonough, Georgia, Lebanon, Indiana and

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

. The company's commercial foods division provides the majority of business, generating about $100 million in sales during 2001. Its retail sales of the company's bottled products reached almost $88 million.

History

The

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...

takes its name after Ken's Steak House, a

Framingham, Massachusetts Framingham () is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. Incorporated in 1700, it is located in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Middlesex County and the MetroWest subregion of the Greater Boston ...

restaurant founded by Ken and Florence Hanna in 1941. As the restaurant grew, locals began to request that the Hannas bottle their dressings for sale. In 1958 the Hannas licensed the company's name to a family friend and the manufacturing company was then founded. Ken’s ingredient list received backlash from consumers who claimed that the labels on the bottles displayed misleading information. This was the basis for the 2020 court case, Skinner v. Ken’s Foods Inc. The labels originally emphasized the presence of olive oil by placing the words, "Made with Extra Virgin Olive Oil", on the neck of the bottle. However,

olive oil Olive oil is a vegetable oil obtained by pressing whole olives (the fruit of ''Olea europaea'', a traditional Tree fruit, tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin) and extracting the oil. It is commonly used in cooking for frying foods, as a cond ...

was not a significant percentage of the total components that made up the brand’s salad dressings. The company later relabeled their bottles.

References

External links

Ken's Food Website
Salad dressings Condiment companies of the United States Steakhouses in the United States {{food-company-stub