Bestfoods history

In 1900 the National Starch Manufacturing Company reached an agreement to cooperate with the United States Glucose Company, which was also a major stockholder in the United States Sugar Refining Company.

In 1901 Thomas Edward Bedford, an executive of Standard Oil of New Jersey, organized the New York Glucose Company to compete with the Corn Products Company.

Hellmann’s got its start when a German immigrant, Richard Hellmann, began selling his wife’s version at his deli in New York in 1905.

In January 1906, the two companies, together with Warner Sugar Refining Company, merged to form the Corn Products Refining Company (CP) and Bedford became president of the new group.

One of these plants, the world's largest corn-products manufacturing plant, was begun in 1908 near Summit, Illinois, and, when it was completed, processed about one-third of CP's total output at that time.

In 1913 the federal government brought suit against Corn Products and its related companies for violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Business was so good that he sold the delicatessen by 1915, to devote his full time to the mayonnaise business.

By 1916 Corn Products manufactured more than 75 percent of all American-made glucose, selling roughly 30 percent of this to the confectionery industry.

American Linseed began to diversify in 1917, acquiring the Nucoa Butter Company, whose largest subsidiary, The Best Foods, Inc., produced margarine, mayonnaise, and other edible-oil products.

In 1919, following protracted litigation, the Supreme Court ordered CP to divest itself of several properties, but did not require that the company be dissolved.

In January 1921 the company purchased several more German production facilities.

In June 1922 American Cotton Oil sold its cottonseed-crushing mills in the South and began to concentrate on its soap-making subsidiary, the N.K. Fairbank Company.

The union of American Linseed and Gold Dust occurred in 1928, when Gold Dust bought blocks of American Linseed stock, acquired American Linseed's packaged-goods division, and, in July 1928, finally bought the rest of the business, selling its flaxseed operations.

In January 1929 the enlarged Gold Dust Corporation bought the Standard Milling Company, the oldest and second-largest American milling company.

In 1930 CP's assets were about $80 million.

In November 1936 Gold Dust combined its three operating subsidiaries, 2-in-1 Shinola Bixby Corporation, Preserves and Honey, Inc., and Hecker-H-O Company, Inc. into a single corporation, taking the Hecker name for the whole.

And in 1939 Hecker President George Morrow sold the Gold Dust soap business to Lever Brothers Company for $2.5 million.

By April 1944, CP's Kansas City, Missouri, and Pekin, Illinois, refineries had been closed for lack of corn and the same kind of stoppage threatened its big Argo, Illinois, plant.

In 1955 Best Foods made several important acquisitions.

In 1963 the company established a Knorr plant in Japan and began manufacturing starch in Pakistan.

In April 1969 the company changed its name to CPC International Inc.

And, in 1983, CPC acquired the C. F. Mueller Company, one of the largest United States pasta makers, for $122 million.

After steering CPC through the takeover attempt and restructuring, CEO James R. Eiszner was named chairman in 1987, succeeding chairman James W. McKee, Jr.

Freed of Perelman, the company moved ahead with its takeover-prompted restructuring plans, completing the buyback of 20 percent of its stock in 1988 at a total cost of $836.9 million.

By 1994, nearly two-thirds of sales and profits were generated outside the United States.

In 1996 the company agreed to pay a fine of $7 million to settle a civil antitrust lawsuit brought against CPC, Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., Cargill Inc., and other corn-refining companies alleging collusion and price-fixing.

On January 1, 1998, CPC International changed its name to Bestfoods.

Dana and Howard Bloom are the cofounders of Proper Food, a high-quality grab-and-go food company launched in 2013, which currently has 12 locations between San Francisco and NYC. Proper Food aims to eliminate the dilemma between eating well and eating fast.