In just about every restaurant kitchen, the decaffeinated coffee pot has an orange band. Ask a person under 30 why that band is colored orange, and they won’t know. They will know that it means decaf, but they won’t know why.

The reason, of course, it is orange is because orange is the packaging color of Sanka, the freeze-dried decaffeinated coffee. Sanka was invented in German at the turn of the century, and in Europe is known as Coffee HAG because of the original manufacturer. In the states, the company sold their invention as Sanka, French for Sans Caffeine. For most of the 20th century, it was ubiquitous in most American households.

The word Sanka was so much a part of the American pantheon that most Americans would ask for “Sanka please” when they went out to eat at a restaurant. Today, folks just ask for a decaf.

General Foods took over Sanka, and made it a household name in the U.S. They invested massively in advertising the product, including the sponsorship of top shows like CBS’ The Goldbergs, where protagonist Molly Goldberg spoke about Sanka through a window.

But when Kraft obliterated the General Foods brand, many of the top General Foods products languished, including Sanka. You see, the former General Foods brands were tightly associated with the parent company, and when that relationship was confused, consumers stopped trusting it. In addition, because Kraft owned so many brands, its less prosperous brands did not get the advertising attention they deserved. One silly notion..that Sanka could be sold as decaf Maxwell House.

Some products, like Postum, completely disappeared. In the case of Sanka, it got confused with other Kraft brands. Oddly, it suffers now, in a health-conscious era when decaffeinated coffee is ubiquitous. In fact, it is so omnipresent that Folgers, long a competitor with Maxwell House, uses the green color to identify decaf (as did Taster’s Choice).

Currently, Sanka is sold as a sub-brand of Maxwell House. That is a mistake, as they were always very separate products.

I was curious how such a staple of the Southern diet, namely a Coke and Nabs, could be served on an airline that made such a pretense of being sophisticated. Biscoff maybe, but I could not understand Nabs. Perhaps the Deep South roots of Delta were showing through?

I asked, “How long has Delta been giving out Nabs in flight?”

“Nabs?” she asked.

She did not know what “Nabs” were. I then had to explain that “Nabs” were what most in the South call peanut butter crackers. Lance (and that other brand Austin, owned by Kellogg’s) might be the top brands for a peanut butter cracker, but they are all called Nabs because route men from Nabisco used to distribute the Nabs brand for sale at checkout counters and filling stations.

Sometime in the 1970s or 1980s, Nabs by Nabisco were discontinued, and Lance became the dominant brand.

Sadly, I am encountering more and more folk who do not know that packaged peanut butter crackers are called “Nabs.”

In primary school (I have forgotten which grade), I recall doing a Warriner’s grammar exercise where it came up. Perhaps it was about the use of nouns, or singular or plural; that’s not important. The question was something like, “Service stations sell ____ and ____. My good friend Russell Smith gave the answer as, “gas and Nabs.” Why of course! Filling stations sell Nabs. That wasn’t the actual answer, but everyone in the class had a laugh. I don’t know why I remember that.

On Facebook, in the Mississippians section, there is a page called “Nabs or Crackers?” Somehow, you can define yourself by what you call these orange crackers. The main food staple of a Southern filling station, the lowly Nab.

The question, though is that Nabisco, while it had bakeries around the U.S., was mostly a Northeastern company, though I don’t think that many Northeasterners call them Nabs. Perhaps it is that back in the 1950s and 1960s, they didn’t spend as much time in filling stations?

Perhaps Kraft, owners of the Nabisco name, might bring back “Nabs” and reclaim their brand equity and legacy?

Love to hear what other folks think. Nabs or crackers?

I was appalled at the change; I thought the company had decided to retain the venerable red bag.

But the story sort of struck me wrong after I looked up the ownership of Wrigley, and its languishing brand Life Savers. When looking it up, I was reminded that the candy brand is connected to Berkshire Hathaway which took a minority stake in Wrigley in 2008 (Mars is the majority owner). (It isn’t one of the main Berkshire Hathaway companies.)

As I wrote yesterday, the brand Life Savers is not in good shape. Not only were the last batches I saw in my kitchen all cracked up and ruined, but my six-year-old did not know what Life Savers were, a sign they were not marketing to youth. They were also made in Mexico. Mars does a good job with its brands, but Life Savers was pretty screwed up when they got it and they have some work to do.

That’s when I got a bit saddened by the charity story. Great that you are doing it, but to my mind I would rather that these folk were investing their portfolio gains and time in companies and factories, and matching their employees’ donations to charity, rather than setting up a next generation of non-profit bureaucratic foundations.

The world is better for Benjamin Moore Paint, International Dairy Queen and Geico and BNSF, and we need more of these companies. To put it more simply, anyone would prefer a job at a company run by Gates and Buffett to charity. Any city would prefer to have a Microsoft sales center in their city than a Bill Gates charity office. If people have jobs, good jobs, at factories and railroads and insurance companies, there won’t be a need for charity. Of course this is too simplistic, and a $1 billion can save probably millions of lives in Africa, but I believe it’s an important point.

Start With Life Savers

Perhaps Warren can start with Life Savers, a product that used to be made in the U.S., but is now made in Mexico. In 2003, Mr. Buffett wrote a Fortune cover story on the threat of the trade deficit. And now, his company’s investment is poster child. Right now, the Life Savers brand suffers because it is no longer made in the U.S. It’s like buying a Toblerone made in Portugal.

This is a product that can easily be made in the U.S. again.

Critics will say that it is cheaper to make the product in Mexico. Oh the excuses we hear. Unions ruined us! The sugar price is unfairly regulated in favor of Florida interests! Bad U.S. tax structures are to blame! Shelf space is expensive, and that is where we need to invest! All true, but with the power and influence of the company, and the Mars/Buffett interests, I am sure any of these political barriers can be pushed aside if the goal is bringing such a product back to our shores. Furthermore, it is time for business leaders to start fighting to change anti-business laws, and not just move production overseas to save a few pennies on each package.

Perhaps the Life Savers move back to the U.S. might be make “on-shoring”  have a snowball’s chance at working. The Alliance for American Manufacturing‘s Scott Paul, admittedly a pro-union group, watches the job trends and says that the actual numbers don’t yet show a trend to on-shoring, though the media has been talking about it.

Thoughts:

1. Food needs to be close to markets: Distance makes the shipping of the product obviously problematic (so many in my package were crushed), so being closer to markets will make the product better.
2. Automate it: The factory can now be mechanized quite completely, reducing staff overhead.
3. Made in USA matters: The brand has lost identity because it is no longer made in the U.S.
4. Spur for other allied industries: The creative sourcing of organic ingredients would be a spur to U.S. agriculture, and many different farms that could promote the fact that their fruit was part of the reformulated Life Savers. This “halo” would further help to quell persistent critics of junk food, and to increase Mars/Wrigley shelf space.
5. Tourism lure: The actual plant would be configured to be both a public attraction and a plant. The smell of the factory would be the first draw; it would be easy to design a modest retail operation and glass enclosed tour to go with it.
6. It does not have to be big: Machines can crank out lots of Life Savers, and a plant dedicated just to them would be easy to keep small. I bet the company could build a factory for less than a modest national ad campaign. Indeed, the factory would BE the ad campaign.
7. Location matters: The new location of the plant needs to be a national contest. Let cities compete to be the new home of Life Savers. This is the sort of prized factory that any city would fight to have. I can only imagine the tax advantages that Wrigley/Mars will receive.

Perhaps I have too romantic a conception of American business. But if this country is to survive, we need to do and build things. We can’t just push paper, and license brands. It might, in certain circumstances, be more efficient. But my how boring that is.

There is a darker reality. The business environment is such that perhaps Atlas is Shrugging. I do hope not.

SARASOTA

For my wife’s vacation bible school class, they made the week’s theme the stained glass windows in Church of the Redeemer. After seeing the windows of this Sarasota Bay church, the kids took cookies and topped them with “stained glass” chips of melted Life Savers that mimicked the windows. You take the Life Savers, separate them, and then re-melt them into a sheet. You can then break them into pieces, like shards. Note to brand managers: It’s always helpful to make sure your brand shows up somehow in children’s craft activities. In this case, you have two products, a candy and something like Shrinky Dinks.

But when we opened up the bag to start the process, many were broken. Not that it mattered for this project, but it would irk if I were eating them. They were stickier than I recall a generation ago, as well. My six -year-old loved the taste and all the varieties, but she did not know what Life Savers were, an indication they were skimping on advertising. They were also made in Mexico. It all got me thinking that the product is on the wrong trajectory. I realized that it was yet another of the once-great denuded and emasculated American brands.

Part of American History

Life Savers has a long history, born in Cleveland in 1913. But their recent unwrapping mimics the sorry story of American industry, a series of leveraged buyouts that each step of the way leaves some very much richer, and the rest of us poorer. After a series of owners including Nabisco, the company was purchased from Kraft in 2005 for around $1.4 billion. Coupled with the sale were some hefty tax advantages and the “regrettable” closing of a bunch of candy plants. Life Savers is now a part of Mars, which purchased Wrigley two years ago with the help of Berkshire Hathaway. Mars, we hope, has the long-term view. (Kraft, however, has just gone back into where they failed, and purchased Cadbury. We hope they show it more love than Life Savers.)

Looking at the bag of Life Savers, I tried to list what needed to be fixed with the brand. A few thoughts:

1. Where Are the Rolls? It is difficult to find Life Savers in simple rolls, so we had to get a hanging bag. In stores, they take up WAY more space than they need too. This changes the essential nature of the brand’s feeling, which was that they were wrapped in foil and wax paper, with a green little dental floss like thing. While I am sure Wrigley can point to some studies that show that procuring hanging rack space by the checkouts sells some candy, the rolls take up far less shelf space and are much more efficient all around.
2. Fake, Fake: The Life Savers were packed with artificial sweeteners, and the taste seems to be the same as the FDA-approved list from Monsanto, c. 1962. (I always thought the cherry was rather too close the smell to the cherry scented urinal cakes, but this cherry might just be another fake cherry flavor). While this chintzy sort of Nixon-era trick would work in 1969, this is no longer possible in an era when parents shop at Whole Foods. Recently, I read an article recommending giving kids peppermint aromatherapy for grumpy moments. How does the artificial sweetener do for that sort of mentality?
3. Messy Type: The LIFE SAVERS type on top of the Life Saver is hardly legible, though I guess it would show up if you took a pencil rubbing. Part of a brand’s appeal is making the type crisp, and that goes not only for packaging, but the shape and feel of the product.
4. No Marketing to Youth: The product is not on most candy shelves, and it is not marketed even to teens. Now, our six-year-old liked the candy, but amazingly, she did not know what Life Savers were. There is no reason why kissing teens can’t be entertained by the sparks in Wint-o-green.
5. Get on the candy rack: Little fingers reach for the low areas in the candy rack in the checkout line and at the convenience store. The candy must get back on these shelves. Occasionally, there are Gummi Savers on the rack, but that’s it.
   
6. Made in Mexico: When you turn over the package, you see it in plain English. Made in Mexico. To the consumer, and for a simple-to-make food product, this means the company was trying to do something on the cheap. The product message connotes sucking, not on a candy, but sucking as in the “giant sucking sound” of jobs and plants going abroad. Now mind you, don’t blame the poor factory manager in Mexico for the cracked up candies and our messed up bags. That’s all American made.

Tomorrow: Life Savers and U.S. production. It’s time for production to come back to the U.S.

On a recent visit to Publix, we spied these new shelf entries for Seven Seas. The logo makes the familiar Kraft oval less prominent than the “Seven Seas” triangle. A fairly nice approach to preserving the legacy and goodwill of an old brand after a messy merger.

Seven Seas was once a separate company, part of Anderson Clayton Foods.

Read more about the history of packaged salad dressing in an earlier entry by BrandlandUSA guest columnist Dooney Tickner.

See Searching the Seven Seas

General Foods International Coffees, the last stand of the General Foods brand, might be on its way out. It appears that the coffee’s maker, Kraft, is testing a new Suisse Mocha under the Maxwell House brand. In the photo here, at right is the older version, General Foods International Coffee that is “from the makers of Maxwell House.” At left is what appears to be the new version.

General Foods once sold three coffee brands, Sanka, Maxwell House and General Foods International Coffee. When General Foods merged with Kraft, the company became Kraft General Foods. Eventually, the General Foods was dropped, but the Kraft survived.

Kraft would do well to keep some vestige of General Foods around, though fewer know it than a decade ago. The brand has tremendous goodwill; pity Kraft has not figured a way to take advantage of it. Part of the problem is that when the General Foods corporate brand disappeared, the small coffee brand lost the promotional value of General Foods. Brands such as Jell-O, Tang, Sanka, Gaines, Maxwell House, Post, Kool-Aid and the like were all advertised as sub brands of General Foods. Whenever the product was advertised, General Foods was mentioned. That halo is gone.

• The new Big G Kids Cereals ads from General Mills are great. Animated Lucky Charms leprechaun are talkin’ nutrition next to the kids. Smart stuff. I’m so cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. And the leprechaun and Cocoa bird are in the SAME commercial.
• Postum Update: A reader contacted BrandlandUSA. Their question? When would Kraft, which ended production of the drink Postum, decide to release the formula so its fans could know how to get it to drink? Monday, we contacted Kraft’s public relations team by their contact form on their site, and have heard nothing. Now that’s a social media strategy I hadn’t thought of!
• Stein Mart has just published their annual report. Sadly, they mention that while Stein Mart is trademarked and an asset, they don’t mention their ownership of the Peck & Peck brand, which with a bit of management and marketing could be as valuable as Abercrombie & Fitch. They say “management believes that our trademarks are important, but with the exception of Stein Mart, not critical to our marketing strategy. Peck & Peck was a brand as great as they come, but now it is a store brand of Stein Mart. Oh well. Another opportunity missed. However, the good news is that Stein Mart is taking good care of the brand, and at least keeping it alive. And when I ask clerks at the store, they mention how many people still trust the brand, decades after the venerable department store is gone.
• Shirley Plantation: We happened to see Virginia’s Shirley Plantation and Colonial Williamsburg in some recent ads, but we can’t remember what the ad was about. It wasn’t a tourism ad, as Shirley is privately owned. I think it was financial services; I know it wasn’t Virginia tourism Virginia is for Lovers ad. Love some help from readers. In seeing it, I realized that yes, the family visit to the house museum might become hip again.
• Mercury’s Future: There has been some question about the future of Mercury as part of Lincoln-Mercury. We just noticed a few prime time ads on Fox selling the Mariner and Milan, as we hadn’t seen them in awhile. While they could have been regional buys, they were not dealer ads, but branding. Then we took a look at the website, where it appears that Ford is definitely paying attention to making the lineup interesting. Yes, there are only four models in the lineup, but they are a great foil for dealers, who can lure drivers into the showroom with Lincoln and sell them a Mercury. By the way, it was the killing of the Plymouth brand that really helped to do in Chrysler. Oh, and the Grand Marquis is becoming  a VERY interesting car, and the longer it survives, the more interesting it gets.
• Lee’s Paint: We got to see Mount Prospect Paint in Chicago, where American Idol Lee Dewyze worked. He apparently was good at stain and paint matching, and his favorite color was tangelo. However, the editors at 19 missed showing that the store was a Benjamin Moore dealer.

To help remind consumers that Shake ‘N Bake is still around, this December Shake ‘N Bake is marketing to local consumers with ads in 17 Boston-area shopping malls. The ads are sort of cheeky, with call-outs such as “You’re looking good today. Is your chicken looking good tonight?” and “You look positively yummy. Your chicken, not so much,” the mirrored ads encourage shoppers to check out themselves – and the state of their chicken dinners.

The mall ads mark Shake ‘N Bake’s first advertising campaign in more than a decade.

“The holidays are filled with hustle and bustle, leaving little time for everyday activities like getting the weeknight meal ready,” said Shake ‘N Bake Brand Manager Ellen Thompson, in a press release. “We wanted to catch consumers during the holiday season when they are putting their best faces forward for festive social engagements, and remind them how easy it can be to also dress up their dinner routine without extra time or effort.”

And there is no melba toast brand more amusing than the best known Melba brand, Old London, a brand that appeared in a recent Mad Men episode.

Old London Melba is about 70 years old; at right a box from the early 1980s when it was owned by Borden. In the 1950s, it was made by the New York-based King Kone Corp, the company that made the Old London Cheesewich. In 1960, King Kone became Old London Foods. Today, the company is part of Nonni’s Foods.

Back then, Melba was sold as the solution to being fat. Today, it’s just another dried bread.

It does, however, go into the WASP cocktail pantheon of consumer foods. Here are our top seven WASP cocktail foods. Actually, one might be able to live on this, at least for awhile.

1. Old London Melba Rounds, served with something very wet
2. Pepperidge Farm Goldfish (the cheddar ones in the small bags are best)
3. Rubschlager Cocktail Breads (the little dry rye breads and such)
4. Triscuits (yes, some WASP people dare), and Ritz.
5. Bremner Wafers, those great white crackers in the classic green tins.
6. Planter’s Dry Roasted Peanuts
7. Blue Diamond Salted Almonds
8. Braswell’s Red Pepper Jelly and Kraft’s Philadelphia Cream Cheese

So we are reading this news that Kraft wants to buy Cadbury (NYSE: CBY). Frankly, we could make all sorts of analysis of why it’s not a good idea for Cadbury stockholders, but in capitalism, if Kraft has enough cash and they want the company bad enough, they could get it.

However, we are opposed to the sale, and we think England will lose out, big time, if Cadbury is sold. Since 1824, Cadbury has been English. It is a part of British identity and British culture, and Kraft won’t understand those nuances. While we don’t like governments meddling in company affairs, the British government would do well to meddle in this one in order to protect a critical British institution.

Some concerns:

• Cadbury World: There are concerns larger than the company’s candy business. Cadbury World is an important stop for tourists, and we know Kraft knows nothing of running a theme museum and tourist attraction. They would be fools to close it to tourists, but things like that happen all the time. While Bournville history will still be there, what makes it all so compelling is the factory aspect. It’s a real Wonka factory, and it’s special.
• Factory closings: First, while Cadbury can ask for all sorts of staffing guarantees after the sale, there is every reason to assume that not only will British staff be fired, but the production could very easily be moved out of Britain gradually. It will go in drips, first this candy, then another. Those eight factories will turn to six, then five, then on down. Then a large bit will go, and pretty soon it will be a ghost. Kraft would argue this, but the reality of modern corporate life is that production is moved overseas when American companies get control.
• Layoffs: The corporate staff will go. Bye bye. One less British multinational company.
• Spin-off jobs: Advertising and marketing will also be less British. While Kraft would have to take a British approach to sell candy, more and more decisions would be made in the U.S., and that would mean lost jobs.

We love the letter Cadbury wrote. It was much nicer than we would be be:

We have created a pure play confectionery business with strong brands occupying leading market positions in both developed markets and high growth emerging economies – a business of considerable inherent value, impossible to replicate and with a unique position in the global confectionery market. We have a clear set of targets, a track record of delivery accepted by the market and value enhancing plans to further exploit our proven growth platforms.

We have demonstrated through our performance to date that we have the scale, capabilities and resource to deliver on our commitments to shareholders. Since the Adams acquisition, our confectionery business has delivered top line growth of over 6%, we have increased our global market share by over 100 bps and generated comparable margin growth of over 200 bps, all while materially increasing spend on marketing and science and technology to drive innovation.

We have been able to demonstrate both organic and inorganic growth. The acquisition of Adams, together with more recent acquisitions, including Intergum and Sansei, provided scale and new growth opportunities in attractive product areas of gum and candy together with exposure to emerging markets that complemented our powerful British Commonwealth heritage.

You’ve got to love companies with “British Commonwealth heritage” and if Cadbury is purchased by Kraft, they will not understand what that means. They also will not understand the company’s Quaker heritage, and the religious inspiration for the company.

Kraft is at some times a well run company, but they have not been faithful to many of the brands that they own, and are quite skillful at dumping them. They will most certainly try to extract every nickel out of Cadbury, and they have no allegiance to British corporate traditions. As an American, I want my Cadbury British.

Britain, please send them packing. Making chocolate with a well-known brand is like printing money, except that it goes on forever. That’s why Kraft wants it. And that’s why British investors should not sell it.

We can’t help but think of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when we think of Cadbury World. Perhaps Cadbury might give Kraft the Augustus Gloop treatment, and send them down a chocolate river.

Frankly, that’s a bit of a scary headline for us brand fiends here at BrandlandUSA. But it is certainly worrisome that we found this bag of Wheat Thins without Nabisco in the corner. Is Kraft (NYSE: KFT) dropping the Nabisco brand, just like they ditched the storied and valuable General Foods brand? And that’s on top of their cheesy new logo that no one likes.

To us the missing logo means one thing. If there is no Nabisco in the corner, there is no quality in the corner. Certainly, it’s an attractive package, and the Wheat Thins were tasty as always, but we won’t be buying them again unless we have the red Nabisco symbol in the corner. We don’t trust Wheat Thins without Nabisco red, and neither should any other readers. Frankly, Kraft’s stock has been stuck in a rut since 2002, and we don’t think ditching Nabisco will help.

Shame on you Kraft!

There could be any number of reasons why they are separating Nabisco from Wheat Thins, including it being a trial. But it is a mistake, as we pointed out in our story, Nabisco Brand Advice Corner.

1. To see how Wheat Thins sell without the red Nabisco label. If they sell O.K., then Kraft could value the Wheat Thins brand as a separate line or brand from Nabisco. Our response: This is an interesting trial of an idea, a trial balloon, but please put the Nabisco back, thank you. And frankly, the packaging looks nice, so there is no reason why it wouldn’t sell well. But the red Nabisco logo has nothing to do with it.
2. Because they think Nabisco is fuddy duddy. If that’s the case, and somehow packaging tests better without it, you all have made the brand fuddy duddy and you need to fix it. There is nothing fuddy about Nabisco; it’s like Coca-Cola. Nabisco is classic. Nabisco is America. Nabisco is the National Biscuit Company, thank you, and I will have no other.
3. Because they might turn Nabisco into a brand itself, and launch new products. That would be odd. As odd as Mac and Cheese branded crackers, btw. But they are doing it; Kraft just turned Nabisco into a classics line, with decent generic cookies iced and animal cookies sold under the brand Nabisco Classics. This is fine, but it is a downgrade, and evidence they are demoting Nabisco.
4. Because they are going to spin off either Nabisco or Wheat Thins, and need to separate the two brands.
5. Because a graphic designer got a bee up his you-know-what, and thought his pretty little design was too great to be cluttered up with a funny red symbol in the corner.

So here’s the deal Kraft. If I am going to trust a cracker and a cookie from your company, I need a Nabisco label on it. Otherwise, it’s Keebler, Sunshine, Pepperidge Farm, Carr’s or a store brand. You hear! And by the way, Kellogg’s makes Sunshine Hydrox now. So if you take the Nabisco off the Oreos too, we’ll have to switch there, too.

Do not drop the Nabisco corner.

In the South, mayonnaise is important. Food snobs do not like it, but that is so wrong, because different degrees of vinegar make different mayo. For instance, I think Kraft mayo is WAY too sweet. And I find that lowfat mayo has an aftertaste.

The key to good food, especially in the summer is mayo. In Virginia, it was mostly all about Duke’s Mayonnaise, which is a North Carolina brand but owned by Richmond-based Sauer. However, just poking around their website, we noticed that they also now sell Mrs. Filbert’s. Mrs. Filbert’s was also a Southern brand, and we didn’t know how Southern until we saw the tower picture in Atlanta from Zeusface.

Sauer bought Mrs. Filbert’s in 1999. Sauer now owns Sauer’s Mayonnaise, Duke’s Mayonnaise and Mrs. Filberts. If Unilever ever sold them Hellman’s, we’d have to put the old Justice anti-trust on ‘em!

There was actually a Mrs. Filbert, a Mrs. M.V. Filbert, who would give you your money back if you didn’t like the mayo.

We are glad Mrs. Filbert is still around.

So it is sad to report that, despite years of survival as the “red-headed stepchild” of these companies’ pantry of brands, we must say farewell to two of the quirkier ones:

Kraft discontinues Postum beverage

Postum, the original product from C.W. Post, whose cereal company would grow over most of the 20th century into the huge General Foods before eventually being swallowed by Kraft, is history. This caffeine-free “roasted grain beverage” had a devoted following, as witnessed by frantic “help, I can’t find Postum anymore!” postings online (a sure sign that a product has been unceremoniously discontinued). Postum was discontinued in 2007, but its absence was not apparent to most until they ran out again. As proof that consumers feel ownership of brands, posts online express hurt and betrayal that “no notice was given” of its impending demise. Sort of like preparing for the death of an old friend?

Ironically, Kraft has given up on the surviving Post cereals, as well. They simply couldn’t tolerate being Number 3 (after Kellogg’s and General Mills) in such a competitive category, and threw in the towel by jettisoning the venerable brand to Ralcorp. Ralcorp, in another twist, is the shell of the once-proud Ralston-Purina. The pet foods now part of Nestle, and the cereals like Chex sold to General Mills, Ralcorp held on to the still lucrative store brand cereals – sort of the “Ralston” part of the business. Now, they have Post, a still strong brand. Expect the company to assume the more well-known Post name soon.

Goodbye to Derby Tamales

ConAgra answered a consumer’s inquiry on February 13, 2009 thusly (found via a search for “Derby tamales”):

“We are . . . sorry to inform you that we no longer produce Derby® Beef Tamales. As consumers’ preferences for products change, so do the varieties of our products. Only the products with the greatest consumer appeal remain on the store shelves over time. Unfortunately, this product did not have enough consumer interest for us to continue manufacturing it.”

Derby tamales came in a jar, and I have to admit, did not seem all that appealing. But it was the namesake of a company, Derby Foods Inc., more famous for another product that continues to survive: Peter Pan peanut butter. Derby Foods was bought by Swift & Co., the famous meat packing company, then always went with whichever conglomerate bought its successor, Hunt-Wesson Foods. (Hunt-Wesson’s owner, Norton Simon, merged with Swift’s owner, Esmark, years ago, and took Derby Foods grocery lines under its name.)

That Derby tamales survived this long is probably a small miracle given today’s companies’ desire to only keep the Number 1 or Number 2 brands (MAYBE Number 3-except Kraft, see Postum above) in any given category-as long as the category is a big one.

Postum and Derby seemingly had their categories all to themselves, but with a category like “canned tamales” or “coffee substitute”, their days were numbered. With their demise, these categories disappear, too.

Kraft, Unilever, and the Marzetti division of Lancaster Colony.  Time has not been kind to heritage brands or flavors in this day of the “world brand”.

Kraft (NYSE: KFT) has long been known for its fine salad dressings and other condiments and still maintains a sizable line under their namesake banner.  Several longtime flavors, Casino French and Salad Secret, have disappeared and a number are pretty obscure.  A recent change in bottles has lent the line a generic, cheap look, though the great taste remains.  Such line variations as Italian, House Italian, and Zesty Italian still coexist with the Seven Seas Viva Italian, also a Kraft label but for how long?

Kraft obtained the Seven Seas brand (see the photo of a 1976 bottle from the website www.winslam.com) through its acquisition of Anderson Clayton Foods.  AC was in businesses similar to Kraft:  salad dressings, oils, and margarine.  Alas, Kraft has scrapped all but the dressings.  As time has gone on, Kraft has de-emphasized the Seven Seas branding, though the bottles do feature a fairly bold Viva tagline and Seven Seas does appear as a large trademark on front and back labels and neck label.  The variety in the line has been gutted, and the bottles are the generic Kraft issue.  The most frequent sightings are Green Goddess, Red Wine Vinaigrette, and Viva Italian.  Under Anderson Clayton, it included Seven Seas’ own versions of such standards as Creamy Italian and Thousand Island.

The Good Seasons brand came to Kraft with the General Foods merger.  Much has been said on this site about the unfortunate fallout of that marriage and the subsequent de-emphasis of the General Foods identity.  Good Seasons had always been a packet mix sold with trademark glass cruets.  Around 12 varieties of dressing packets remain, and the cruets are still sold…but, surprise, hard to locate.  Under the Kraft regime, a line of upscale dressings was introduced using the Good Seasons brand.  They have all been relabeled Kraft on the front and back labels with the Good Seasons trademark appearing only as a tiny feature on the neck label.  One doesn’t think of Good Seasons as a pre-prepared dressing…more Kraft confusion.

Kraft has dallied with many brand extensions over the years.  Its Breakstone Sour Cream line and Philadelphia Cream Cheese line have both been used as salad dressing brands featuring the namesake product as an ingredient.  Neither remain in the line today, though some of the dressings feature mix-ins of Kraft brands…most notably the Ranch with Oscar Mayer bacon.

For their part, Unilever (NYSE: UL) keeps its dressings under the Wish-Bone trademark, using it for spray extensions and for the Bountifuls upscale line.  Under Hellmann’s previous owner, CPC/Best Foods, there were at least two previous Hellmann’s salad dressing lines.  One came out in the 1990′s, another in the late 1950′s-early 1960′s.  Neither survived, though the later incarnation popped up from time to time until the Unilever acquisition of Best Foods.  The world brand strategy leaves Hellmann’s to mayonnaise and uses only Wish-Bone for dressings.

The Marzetti division of Lancaster Colony makes the namesake Marzettti dressings (originally from Marzetti’s Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio), Pfeiffer’s dressings, Cardini’s dressings including their famous Caesar, and Girard’s.  The latter remain specialty/upscale lines; Marzetti and Pfeiffer are basically mass market discount brands these days.  In its day, Marzetti was more like Ken’s Steak House dressings are today.  Ken’s remains independent and was also restaurant-based (Massachusetts).

Mayonnaises and salad dressings like Miracle Whip are also frequently used for salads.  They remain a curious niche market even in today’s more homogenized world.  While the big brands like Kraft and Hellmann’s dominate, Sauer still markets Duke, Sauer’s, Bama, and JFG…all with loyal Southern markets.  Nalley’s (part of Birds Eye Foods) also markets mayonnaise (as well as salad dressings)  in the Western states.  Reily Foods of New Orleans continues national distribution of Blue Plate Mayonnaise.

Editor’s Note: Dooney Tickner is a regular contributor to BrandlandUSA. He owns Dooney’s Book Company in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.