Everything about Nabisco totally explained
Nabisco (originally known as
National
Biscuit
Company) is a brand of
cookies and
snacks, including brands such as
Chips Ahoy!,
Fig Newtons,
Mallomars,
Oreos,
Premium Crackers,
Ritz Crackers,
Teddy Grahams,
Triscuits,
Wheat Thins,
Social Tea,
Nutter Butter,
Peek Freans, Lorna Doone, Famous Chocolate Wafers and
Chicken in a Biskit, used for the
United States,
United Kingdom,
Venezuela and
Mexico as well as other parts of
South America by
Kraft Foods.
All Nabisco branded cookie or cracker products are branded
Christie in Canada. However, prior to the
Post Cereals merger the cereal division kept the Nabisco name in Canada.
US Nabisco-branded products are branded Kraft in some other countries.
Headquartered in
East Hanover, New Jersey, the company is a
subsidiary of
Kraft Foods.
Logo
The Nabisco
logo, a diagonal ellipse with a series of antenna-like lines protruding from the top, is known as the "Nabisco Thing", and can be seen imprinted on Oreo wafers in addition to Nabisco product boxes and literature. It has been claimed in company promotional material to be an early European symbol for quality. Oreo cookies in Canada don't have this "Nabisco Thing" as they're branded as Christie in that country. Elsewhere, the packaging is branded with the Kraft logo.
Merger history
Nabisco dates its founding back to
1898, a decade during which the
bakery business underwent a major consolidation. Early in the decade, bakeries throughout the country were consolidated regionally, into companies such as
Chicago's American Biscuit and Manufacturing Company (which was formed from 40 Midwestern bakeries in 1830), the
New York Biscuit Company (consisting of seven eastern bakeries), and the
United States Baking Company. In 1898, the
National Biscuit Company was formed from the combination of those three; the merger resulted in a company with 114 bakeries across the United States and headquartered in New York City. The "
biscuit" in the name of the company is a
British English and early
American English term for cracker products.
Key to the founding of Nabisco was Pittsburgh baking mogul Sylvester S Marvin. Marvin arrived in Pittsburgh in 1863 and established himself in the cracker business, founding S. S. Marvin Co. Their products embraced every description of crackers, cakes and breads. Marvin was called “The Edison of Manufacturing” for his innovations in the bakery business – by 1888 the largest in the United States – and the centerpiece to the organization of the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco). Marvin was also a member of the elite
South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club of
Johnstown Flood fame.
The first use of "Nabisco" was in a cracker brand first produced by National Biscuit Company in 1901 . The firm later introduced - either through development or acquisition
Barnum's Animal Crackers (1902),
Lorna Doones and
Oreos (1912)
. The first use of the red triangular logo was in 1952 . The name of the company wasn't changed to Nabisco until 1971; prior to that year, the company was often referred to as
N.B.C. (unrelated to the
broadcasting company; even though the logo could be said to resemble an
antenna, this seems to be a coincidence). In 1924 the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) introduced a snack, put in a 5-cent sealed packet called "Peanut Sandwich Packet". They soon added a second, "Sorbetto Sandwich Packet". These packets allowed salesmen to sell to soda fountains, road stands, milk bars, lunch rooms, news stands etc. Sales increased and in 1928 the company adopted and started to use the name NAB, which immediately won the approval of the public. The term "Nabs" today is used to generically mean any type of snack crackers, most commonly in the southern United States.
The Nabisco unit that produces cookies and crackers was renamed the
Nabisco Biscuit Company in the 1990s. That prompted advertising columnist Stuart Elliott in
The New York Times to quip that since Nabisco stood for the National Biscuit Company, the unit should be known as the National Biscuit Company Biscuit Company (a modified
RAS syndrome).
N.B.C. acquired the Shredded Wheat Company (maker of
Triscuit and
Shredded Wheat cereal) and Christie, Brown & Company of
Toronto in 1928, but all of the Nabisco products in Canada still use the name "Christie". N.B.C. acquired F.H. Bennett Company (maker of
Milk-Bone dog biscuits) in 1931 . When
Kraft bought Nabisco, it included Christie.
In 1981 Nabisco merged with
Standard Brands, maker of
Planters Nuts and separately acquired
LifeSavers Candies. The company was then renamed
Nabisco Brands, Inc.
In 1985 Nabisco was bought by
R.J. Reynolds, forming
RJR Nabisco. RJR Nabisco was in turn bought out in 1988 by
Kolberg Kravis Roberts in the biggest
leveraged buyout in history. This was described in the book
Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco by
Bryan Burrough and
John Helyar, and a subsequent
film.
In 1989 it sold Lu, Belin, Jacob and Saiwa to
Groupe Danone.
In 2000
Philip Morris Companies (now called the
Altria Group) acquired Nabisco; that acquisition was approved by the
Federal Trade Commission subject to the
divestiture of products in five areas: three
Jell-O and Royal brands types of products (dry-mix
gelatin dessert, dry-mix
pudding, no-bake desserts), intense mints (such as
Altoids), and
baking powder.
Kraft Foods, at the time also a subsidiary of
Altria Group, eventually merged with Nabisco; in 2007,
Kraft Foods was spun off from
Altria Group, taking its Nabisco subsidiary with it.
Nestle is licensed to make some of the ice cream/popsicle variants of
Oreo,
Chips Ahoy! and
Kool-Aid in
Canada.
In January 2007
Cream of Wheat was sold to B&G Foods.
Legal battles
In 1997, the
National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus
became concerned with an
ad campaign for
Planters Deluxe Mixed Nuts. The initial
commercial featured a man and monkey deserted on an island. They discover a crate of Planters peanuts and rejoice in the peanuts' positive health facts. The NAD was concerned that its appoach with the
tagline "Relax. Go Nuts." and its claim of containing "no
cholesterol" would cause consumers to believe that the product was
fat free and, thus, quite healthy to eat on a regular basis.
Nabisco made a detailed statement describing how their peanuts were healthier than most other snack products, going as far as comparing the
nutritional facts of Planters peanuts to those of
potato chips,
cheddar cheese chips, and
popcorn. Technically, the commercials complied with
FDA regulations, and their nature of advertising was generally allowed to sustain. However, as requested by the NAD, Nabisco willingly agreed to make fat content disclosure more conspicuous in future commercials.
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