Sales by the privately held business nearly doubled from 1948 to 1958.Ĭompetitor Cream of Wheat was purchased by the National Biscuit Company in 1961, the year Malt-O-Meal added a second flavor. In 1953 Campbell Cereal Company was renamed Malt-O-Meal Company. Box sizes changed in the late 1940s, but the product itself remained the same. Meanwhile, Malt-O-Meal sales climbed steadily. Because of stiff competition from the Kellogg Company, the ready-to-eat cereal was dropped in 1942. In 1936 the corporate headquarters also were shifted to Minneapolis.Ĭampbell's Corn Flakes was introduced in 1939. Campbell established a Minneapolis sales and marketing office in 1932 and began working with an advertising agency. The southwestern market opened up in the late 1920s thanks to a Texas businessman named C.C. In 1927 the company relocated to Northfield, Minnesota, in the Ames Mill, which had been built in 1869. With business booming, Campbell moved the company into the Simpson Mill, which had once been operated by his father and an uncle. Additional promotions were aired on stations in the Midwest, Southwest, and West. The WLS promotion, which began as a two-week trial, ran for more than a year. Grocers were swamped with requests for the cereal, and Malt-O-Meal began gaining shelf space. Kids were offered the chance to win a free toy by sending in a joke and Malt-O-Meal box top to the Steamboat Bill show. Distribution was limited to southern Minnesota and northern Iowa during the first few years.Ĭampbell experimented with radio promotion in 1925 on WLS in Chicago. He quickly found there was an art to selling a new product and hired a salesman, who offered free customer samples to retail grocers. Initially a one-man venture, Campbell processed the malt and wheat in an iron cylinder with a gas burner, then packaged and sold the cereal he named Malt-O-Meal. In 1919 Campbell Cereal Company began operating out of an old creamery building rented for $11 per month. Malt gave me the flavor I wanted and toasting reduced the cooking time of my finished product to two or three minutes." "My idea was to make a cereal that tasted better and cooked quicker than the top-selling wheat farina product, Cream of Wheat, which then took about 30 minutes to cook. After serving in World War I, Campbell returned home to Owatonna, Minnesota, and invested $800 (poker earnings, according to a 1969 Minneapolis Tribune article by Charles B. Campbell's first job was in his father's grain milling company. The firm remains privately owned by members of the Brooks and Fort families, descendants of the founder. Its facilities include two manufacturing plants in Northfield, Minnesota, and one in Tremonton, Utah, as well as distribution centers in Grove City, Ohio Coppel, Texas and Salt Lake City, Utah. The low-profile company produces and markets cereals under its own and private-label names, distributing its products in more than 70 percent of the nation's retail grocery stores. cereal market while still selling its mainstay products it also makes four varieties of instant oatmeal. Best known as a manufacturer of hot wheat cereals for the majority of its years in business, Malt-O-Meal has evolved into a leader in the value-priced, bagged ready-to-eat U.S. Malt-O-Meal Company is the fifth largest cereal manufacturer in the United States, holding slightly more than 7 percent of the $7.1 billion U.S.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |