SMITHFIELD, Va. – Yet another bit of appalling news from the world of conglomerate brands. This morning, The Washington Post reported that the now-Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods has stopped making hams in Smithfield. Of course, if you make ham in the most famous ham capital in the world, and you makeMORE HERE
NEW YORK- About 10 years ago, someone put together a list of all the brands at Lord & Taylor at a particular moment in time. I saved the electronic list, just because it told of how many different brands there were at just one department store. Today, the list isMORE HERE
There are few things more satisfying, food wise, than putting good cream on the top of fruit, or adding sour cream, or whipped cream, or coffee with cream, or tea with milk, or bread with butter, or cold or hot cereal with milk. Cream on top, buttered bread, ice cream,MORE HERE
HOBOKEN – Newell Brands, formerly Newell Rubbermaid, owns an astonishing array of classic brands. For those of us who like these classics, they are the owners of American crown jewels. These include Sunbeam, Shakespeare, Blue Diamond, Oster, Coleman, Sharpie, Rubbermaid, Elmer’s, Rawlings, Elmer’s Glue, Ball jars, X-ACTO knives, Crock-Pots, DymoMORE HERE
SAN ANTONIO – The Joske’s Department Store, so long a beloved presence in Texas, yet another example of a revived department store location that is a mall and downtown anchor. This follows a recent trend of refitting large downtown department stores. In the case of Joske’s, the project promotes theMORE HERE
MINNEAPOLIS – It was always inane and wasteful that Macy’s could not figure out what to do with its downtown store that was the former Dayton’s. Finally, they shuttered it, the property taken over for redevelopment. Thankfully, the store name will be revived as The Dayton’s Project. Dayton’s, of courseMORE HERE
CHICAGO – Seven years ago, I proposed on Seeking Alpha that BP, formerly British Persia and British Petroleum and now just BP, bring back the Amoco brand as an option for franchisees. This was during the BP oil spill fiasco, which was, at the time, a big mess. They justMORE HERE
ASTORIA, QUEENS – After the bankruptcy of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, yearly customers of the company’s Jane Parker fruitcakes were left bereft of their favorite holiday treat. However, two Long Island food entrepreneurs, brothers Alex and Chris Ronacher, have revived the historic brand, which was nearly asMORE HERE
The inventiveness of the 20th century left us with many viable, yet sometimes overlooked, genius brands. One such brand is the Heatilator, a fireplace heating system that gets more efficiency and safety out of the fireplace. Heatilator was the idea of making a cast iron wood stove look like aMORE HERE
PITTSBURGH – Because many downtown department stores have failed under the current model of Macy’s, there is a misunderstanding of what a department store is, and whether a department store is a valid idea. Currently, the idea of a department store is a massive, massive clothing and accessories store, withMORE HERE