George Hormel
George Hormel was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1860, but his family
soon settled in Toledo, Ohio. As a youth, Hormel worked in his
father's tannery before heading to Kansas City to seek his fortune.
There he worked as, a traveling wool buyer. He did not find the
fortune he was seeking, so he moved to Chicago.
Spam
With only a slight change of direction, Hormel became a hide buyer.
But a vacation in 1887 changed his life. That year, while visiting
friends in Austin, Minnesota, he learned of a butcher shop that had
closed after a fire. Hormel borrowed $500 from his boss and reopened
the shop. Next he converted a creamery into a meat market, and by 1893
he controlled most of the meat business in the area. The
turn-of-the-century innovation of improved refrigerator cars allowed
Hormel to expand outside the area, and the addition of an ice storage
facility at the Hormel plant in 1899 allowed the company to process
more meat. The business was successful enough to allow Hormel's father
and three brothers to join him. Following World War I, his son Jay
came on board as well.
In 1935, Hormel added canned chili and Dinty Moore Beef Stew to its
list of products, and two years later Jay Hormel introduced Spam.
Because of their long shelf life without refrigeration, the products
were perfect staples during the Great Depression and World War II. At
the Hormel Foods plant in Austin, Minnesota, workers today turn out
435 cans of Spam each minute. Americans now consume 3.5 million pounds
of Spam per year. Worldwide, Hormel says that 3.8 cans of Spam are
consumed every second.
Despite efforts by the Hormel company legal department, the name
"Spam" has popped into Internet lexicon as a synonym for unsolicited
bulk e-mail. According to one source, the Internet use of Spam traces
its origin to a famous Monty Python sketch in which a cafe customer is
offered a choice of "Spam, Spam, egg and Spam, or Spam, Spam, Spam,
Spam, Spam, baked beans and Spam or lobster thermidore aux cravettes
with a mornay sauce garnished with truffle pate, brandy, fried egg on
top and Spam." I will leave any possible connection between that skit
and bulk e-mailing to the reader. In any case, representatives for
Monty Python have said that the British comedians did not face my
legal repercussions for the unsolicited use of the product name became
it actually helped increase Spam sales.
In 1994, the Hormel Food Company rolled out its 5-billionth can of
Spam. To celebrate this event, Hormel created a Spam cookbook
featuring recipes that might have come from the Monty Python comedy
routine. They include Macaroni and Cheese with Spam, Reubens with
Spam, Spam Salsa, and Spam Salad with Sesame Dressing.
|
|