WALLED LAKE, Michigan – If you have ever purchased ammonia, the oldest and best-known brand is Parsons Household Ammonia, which dates from 1881. That makes it one of the older consumer products in the United States. Today, it has a new life as a sister product to the Brillo pad.MORE HERE
FAIRFIELD, Conn. – Uncle Wiley’s is a food seasoning brand for the produce aisle, geared to vegetables like yams and greens. With simply titled seasonings, each flavor packet describes what it is for, no explanations needed. Flavors include Eat Your Beans, Eat Your Greens and Eat Your Yams. Retail pricesMORE HERE
LONDON – The news that the Marks & Spencer Group Plc of the U.K. purchased (or perhaps rescued) the fashion brand Jaeger for a reported meager £5 million pounds is the result of a changing retail market that has put thousands of retailers out of business worldwide. For over 100MORE HERE
Chestnut Hill, Tenn. – If one wants to see the perfect template for promoting a consumer product brand, steal a few ideas from Bush Brothers & Company, makers of Bush’s Best beans. The brand, founded in 1908, is still family owned, with offices and plant in East Tennessee. The brandMORE HERE
SARASOTA – Local restaurant brands are fickle, particularly the local concept restaurant. The concept restaurant was a relic of the 1960s and 70s, an idea that a diner not only needed food, but a unique atmosphere to make it an experience. In tourist areas, the concept restaurant has a particularMORE HERE
Parsippany, N.J. – Last December, B&G Foods, Inc. (NYSE: BGS) announced the purchase of the Crisco brand of shortening from J. M. Smucker Co. for $550 million in cash. As part of the acquisition, B&G Foods also acquired the Crisco factory and warehouse in Cincinnati, Ohio. B&G specializes in “shelf-stable”MORE HERE
BROOKLYN – In the 1950s, when television watching began, people left the dining room, but still wanted to eat “properly” in a civilized way. The people of American aspiration, namely upper middle class Americans, ate at dinner tables, a habit of generations, the emblem of upward mobility and respectability. RadioMORE HERE
TAMPA – Repair businesses were once a backbone of a small-town economy. If Main Street was the front-facing retail and public end of the local business ecosystem, the side streets and corners, with cheaper rents, offered small businesses the space to fix things. The Norman Rockwell painting What Makes itMORE HERE
rankly, there is alot of good inside Kellogg’s Pop-Tart Pastries, but the real good was the man inside, Milton the Toaster. Milton was a friend. A buddy. A bit sassy. And he always delivered the goods, two to a pack. Not too hot, mind you. Or it might burn. Pop-TartsMORE HERE
A candy that is first candy, and then gum, is a special kind of Wonka-like experience. Not Wonka-like because of its provenance, but because of its ambition. Razzles are not only sweets and taste, but technology and sensation. Something happens. They do something. They are sort of transformative, in theMORE HERE