10 of America’s Oldest Food Brands
One of these brands of packaged food is even older than our country.
Go into a store and you’ll see shelves full of boxes, cans, and bags—some familiar, some new. Behind that colorful façade of logos and nutrition panels lies a highly competitive industry; every inch of shelf space must be earned and kept through robust sales. A lot of new products don’t make it, and are destined from the get-go for the annals of obscurity.
That makes food brands that have been around for decades all the more impressive. Some, in fact, predate modern grocery stores. They were results of early innovators who were quick to implement or develop new processing, packaging, and shipping technologies.
These are all products you can still go out and purchase today. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to figure out how to avoid encountering some of them, they’re such a ubiquitous part of the grocery store landscape.
Oldest Chocolate Maker: Baker’s
Chocolate-making technology and fashions in the U.S. have gone through a curious arc since Dr. James Baker and his partner John Hannon began importing cacao beans in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1764. Back then, solid chocolate was not the smooth and creamy product we’re familiar with today, but a convenience item for baking or making drinking chocolate—that is, solid chocolate was gritty, bitter, and not made for eating out of hand. Besides, Baker’s chocolate (Hannon never returned from a business trip to the West Indies, so his wife sold the company to Baker in 1780) was never intended to eat as a snack, because it’s not conched (that’s the refining process that makes chocolate smooth and mellow). So yes, even in its sweetened form, Baker’s Chocolate is indeed for baking, and its brand name handily dovetails with its product description. It’s now owned by Kraft and is not by any stretch artisan chocolate—but if you need to make brownies for the P.T.A. bake sale, it’s your go-to.
Oldest Breakfast Cereal: Grape-Nuts
Joe Wolf CC BY-ND
We should clarify that we mean cold breakfast cereal here. Post launched Grape-Nuts in 1897 (and, according to the totally awesome cereal database on Mr. Breakfast, just edged out Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, which followed a year later). Breakfast cereals were part of a wave of radical health-food proponents like C.W. Post and the Kellogg brothers. It’s amusing to consider that both Post and Kellogg’s went on to create such sugary, lighthearted treats as Honey Smacks and Cinnamon Marshmallow Scooby-Doo! Grape-Nuts still marches on, however; certified food snobs (like me) eat it with fresh fruit and buttermilk.
Oldest Ice Cream Company: Bassetts
This Philadelphia institution began in 1861, when founder Lewis Dubois Bassett powered his backyard ice cream churn with a mule. The mule is long gone, but Basset’s is still a family-run business, operating scoop shops and retail distribution to restaurant and grocery stores, too. Bassetts has had a stand in Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market since 1892.
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