Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation was a baby food company owned by the Swiss branded consumer-goods firm Hero Group.[1]
Industry | Baby food |
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Founded | 1891 |
Founder | Raymond P. Lipe, John D. Zieley, Walter H. Lipe and David Zieley |
Defunct | 1976 | (as a candy company)
Fate | Re-branded as a baby food company; acquired by Hero Group |
Headquarters | , |
Key people | Dianne Jacobs |
Products | Cereal, Baby Food Jars, Baby Food Pouches, Toddler Snacks |
Owner | Hero Group |
Website | https://www.beechnut.com/ |
Beech-Nut's roots go back to 1891, to the Mohawk Valley town of Canajoharie, New York. 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.[2] 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 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, jam, pork and beans, ketchup, chili sauce, mustard, spaghetti, macaroni, marmalade, caramel, fruit drops, mints, chewing gum, and coffee.
It is well within the reach of most white-collar criminals to assume an air of irreproachable virtue, especially when they're about to be sentenced. But there was something unusually compelling about the bearing of Niels L. Hoyvald and John F. Lavery as they stood before Judge Thomas C. Platt of the United States District Court in Brooklyn last month - especially in light of what they were being sentenced for. As president and vice president of the Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation, Hoyvald and Lavery had sold millions of bottles of apple juice that they knew to contain little or no apple juice at all - only sugars, water, flavoring and coloring. The consumers of this bogus product were babies.