Nabisco (pronounced /nəˈbɪskoʊ/; originally known as National Biscuit Company) is an American brand of cookies and snacks. Headquartered in East Hanover, New Jersey, the company is a subsidiary of Illinois-based Kraft Foods. Nabisco's plant in Chicago, a 1,800,000-square-foot (167,000 m2) production facility at 7300 S. Kedzie Avenue, is the largest bakery in the world, employing more than 1,500 workers and turning out some 320 million pounds of snack foods annually.
Its products include Chips Ahoy!, Fig Newtons, Mallomars, Oreos, Ritz Crackers, Teddy Grahams, Triscuits, Wheat Thins, Social Tea, Nutter Butter, Peek Freans, Chicken in a Biskit, used for the United States, United Kingdom, Mexico and Venezuela as well as other parts of South America.
Nabisco products are branded as Kraft in some other countries. All Nabisco 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. The proof of purchase on their products is marketed as a "brand seal".
Nabisco opened corporate offices as the National Biscuit Company in the world's first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building in the Chicago Loop in 1898.
For nearly a century, Nabisco has been one of the most widely recognized names in the American food industry. Today Nabisco Foods Group (formerly Nabisco Brands, Inc.) is among the world's largest manufacturers of cookies and crackers, featuring such famous brands as Oreo, Fig Newtons, and Premium Saltines.
Nabisco Brands was formed in 1981 through a merger of Nabisco and Standard Brands. In 1985 R. J. Reynolds Industries, Inc.. acquired Nabisco Brands in one of the largest takeovers in business history. The origins of Nabisco, however, date back to the formation of the National Biscuit Company at the end of the 19th century. In its early years, the company was usually called N.B.C. In 1941 the company adopted Nabisco, already a popular nickname, as the preferred abbreviation, but it was not until 1971 that Nabisco became the official corporate name.
The National Biscuit Company resulted from the 1898 merger of the midwestern American Biscuit Company, itself the result of the merger of 40 midwestern bakeries, and the eastern New York Biscuit Company, formed from eight bakeries and a smaller firm, the United States Baking Company. Thus, N.B.C. represented the culmination of decades of amalgamation within the biscuit industry. With 114 bakeries and a capital of $55 million, the Chicago-based company held a virtual monopoly on cookie and cracker manufacturing in the United States.
The chief architect of the 1898 merger and the first chairman of the new company was Adolphus Green. Green, a Chicago lawyer and shrewd businessman who had negotiated the American Biscuit Company merger, remained the guiding force at N.B.C. during the first 20 years of its existence. It was Green who was responsible for N.B.C.'s legendary emphasis on standardized, brand name products. Every N.B.C. bakery adhered to exact recipes and uniform standards of production, and N.B.C. developed products that could be nationally identified with the company. All of its merchandise was marked with the company's distinctive emblem: an oval topped by a cross with two bars. (Green found the symbol in a catalog of medieval Italian printers' marks, where it was said to represent the triumph of good over evil.)
Green decided to launch the National Biscuit Company by introducing a new line of biscuits. He chose the ordinary soda cracker, but gave N.B.C.'s an unusual octagonal shape and packaged it in a special protective container. Until then, crackers had been sold in bulk from cracker barrels or large crates, which did little to retard sogginess or spoilage. N.B.C. took crackers out of the barrel and put them into small cardboard boxes with the company's patented "In-er-Seal" waxed paper lining to retain freshness.
Novelty packaging was not enough. Green also commissioned the Philadelphia advertising agency N.W. Ayer & Son to come up with a catchy name for the new cracker. The Ayer agency suggested "Uneeda Biscuit" and also helped promote the product with illustrations of a rosy-cheeked boy clutching a box of Uneeda Biscuits. The boy was dressed in a rain coat and galoshes to call attention to the packaging's moisture-proof nature. The Uneeda Boy became one of the world's best-recognized trademarks.
N.B.C. was a pioneer in company advertising, spending an unprecedented $7 million in its first decade to promote its products. Across the country, newspapers, billboards, and posters queried, "Do you know Uneeda Biscuit?" By 1900, sales of Uneeda Biscuits surpassed 100 million packages, prompting Green to remark that Uneeda was the most valuable word in the English language.
A host of imitators attempted to cash in on the popularity of Uneeda, and the company's attorneys were kept busy defending N.B.C. trademarks against infringement. The company won injunctions against rival bakeries marketing "Iwanta," "Uwanta," and "Ulika" biscuits. By 1906 N.B.C. had successfully prosecuted 249 cases of copyright infringement.
The National Biscuit Company built its reputation on securing customer loyalty to recognized brands such as Uneeda. In the early years of the 20th century, the company concentrated on expanding its line of cookies and crackers. Older products originally created by Nabisco's precursor bakeries that continued to be successful included Fig Newtons and Premium Saltines. In 1902 N.B.C. introduced Barnum's Animal Crackers in the famous decorative box resembling a circus cage filled with animals. In 1912 both Lorna Doones and Oreos were created, the latter eventually becoming the world's best-selling cookie.
N.B.C. moved its headquarters from Chicago to New York in 1906, where the company's factory on Manhattan's lower west side was the world's largest bakery. Yet Adolphus Green still managed the biscuit conglomerate as if it were a small family business. Green disliked delegating power. He personally inspected every company bakery once or twice a year, and most local managers communicated directly with Green. Green's authoritarian style annoyed many of his colleagues and led to frequent resignations from the board of directors. As a result, when Green died in 1917, few of the original directors remained and company management was in disarray.
The most pressing task for Green's successor, Roy E. Tomlinson, was reorganizing N.B.C.'s administrative network. Tomlinson had worked his way up the corporate ladder and was sensitive to the various levels of command. He delegated greater authority to other directors and to middle management, and remained company head until the 1940s.
The year Tomlinson took over was the year America entered World War I. During the war N.B.C. produced a special bread ration for soldiers and Tomlinson acted as advisor to the United States Food Administration. Wartime rationing of wheat flour and sugar also meant that cookies were less sweet and crackers were made of corn meal and rye. Company advertisements at the time depicted Uncle Sam holding boxes of N.B.C. products with the patriotic caption "made as he says."
The 1920s were a period of great prosperity for N.B.C. The company built a number of new bakeries and, in 1925, established its first foreign subsidiary, in Canada. N.B.C. also expanded its product line to include pretzels, breakfast cereal, and ice cream cones. Much of this diversification came about through acquisitions of other companies. In 1928 N.B.C. purchased the Shredded Wheat Company for $35 million. That same year N.B.C. acquired the McLaren Consolidated Cone Corporation, the world's largest manufacturer of ice cream cones.
Nabisco's colophon, a diagonal ellipse with a series of antenna-like lines protruding from the top, forms the base of its logo 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; it may be derived from a medieval Italian printer's mark that represented "the triumph of the moral and good over the evil and worldly." Oreo cookies in Canada do not have the Nabisco Orb, as they are branded as Christie in that country. Elsewhere, the packaging is branded with the Kraft logo.
KKR and Gerstner have pledged not to dismember the company but to manage it for the long run. Nonetheless, in order to cover the company's monumental debt, RJR Nabisco does plan some asset sales; the first was its European cookie and cracker business to BSN, France's largest packaged-food group, for $2.5 billion.
New products provided ten percent of 1991 North American sales&mdashout double the industry average. This was due in part to the introductions--ranging from salty snacks to line extensions--doing well on their own, instead of stealing sales from other Nabisco brands. One of the most popular existing-brand ad-ons has been miniature versions of Oreo, the number-one cookie in the United States. To accommodate the smaller sandwich cookies, the company's Chicago bakery added computer-supported production lines costing millions of dollars. However, Mini Oreo cookies could not fully meet national distribution until mid-1992 due to high consumer demand in midwestern and southern states.
Mr. Phipps pretzel chips was named 1991 "New Product of the Year" by Food & Beverage Marketing magazine. Other new products included Fat-Free Mister Salty pretzels, Gummi Savers candy, LifeSavers Holes candy, Made 'Em Myself cookie kits, and Zings cracker chips. The LifeSavers brand is the United State's best-selling line of hard-roll candy.
The Fig Newtons' franchise has steadily grown throughout the years to include raspberry, apple, and strawberry flavors. The cookie's 100th anniversary in 1991 allowed Nabisco to launch a new promotional campaign that increased the brand's visibility. By 1992 a fat-free version came out and helped to place Fig Newtons as the third-best selling cookie in the United States--after Oreo and Chips Ahoy!, also Nabisco mainstays.
Aggressive advertising, promotion, and new biscuit product introductions also allowed Nabisco to expand its Latin American market--its primary international focus. For example, in Brazil, cookie and cracker sales increased by 39 percent in 1991.
Planters and LifeSavers were combined with Nabisco Brands as part of a total reorganization plan in 1991. With the Planters business revolving primarily around buying nuts at the best price and persistent merchandising, and the LifeSavers focus on keeping point-of-sale racks full, executives realized that they were two completely different entities. Similar blurred-priority situations were discovered, resulting in decentralized marketing, manufacturing, and new product development. Fleischmann's Division was created to focus on refrigerated products. The company's most marketing-intensive brands, like Grey Poupon dijon mustard and Milk-Bone dog biscuits, were reorganized into a Specialty Products Division. And a Food Service Division began marketing to restaurants, fast-food chains, airlines, schools, and others. Nabisco Brands was renamed Nabisco Foods Group.
In contrast, U.S. warehouse sales and logistics were consolidated. Nabisco Foods claims this move was not primarily to save money, but to allow sales representatives the ability to offer retailers a wider array of products at one time. By 1992, some supermarket industry analysts noticed that unit volume growth had become more difficult and that top managers would have to become more involved in the selling process in order to meet retailers' growing power.
By October of 1992, the Nabisco Foods Group had acquired Plush Pippin Corporation and Stella D'Oro Company. Plush Pippin, the Kent, Washington-based manufacturer of premium frozen pies, had $22 million in sales for 1991. Stella D'Oro, marketer of bread sticks and baked specialty treats, reported $65 million.
As Nabisco Foods Group tries to maximize profitability, it must face the fact that most Nabisco bakeries are 30 to 35 years old and in need of modernization. Since the major reconstruction phase of the 1950s, the company has neglected capital improvements. On the other hand, Nabisco's famous brand names are a tremendous strength. Ritz, Oreo, Triscuit--few companies can claim so many products that are household words. These brands, along with Nabisco Brand's recent reorganization and string of acquisitions, should keep the company in the forefront of the food industry.
Principal Subsidiaries: Fleischmann's Division; LifeSavers Division; Nabisco Biscuit Co.; Nabisco Brands Ltd. (Canada); Nabisco International Incorporated; Planters Division; Specialty Products Division.
Statistics:
Wholly owned subsidiary of RJR Nabisco, Inc.
Incorporated: 1898 as the National Biscuit Company
Employees: 39,000
Sales: $6.45 billion
SICs: 2064 Candy & Other Confectionery Products; 2041 Flour & Other Grain Mill Products; 2043 Cereal Breakfast Foods; 2047 Dog & Cat Food; 2052 Cookies & Crackers; 2079 Shortening, Table Oils, & Other Edible Fats & Oils; 2099 Food Preparations
Address:
7 Campus Drive
Parsippany, New Jersey 07054
U.S.A.
Its products include Chips Ahoy!, Fig Newtons, Mallomars, Oreos, Ritz Crackers, Teddy Grahams, Triscuits, Wheat Thins, Social Tea, Nutter Butter, Peek Freans, Chicken in a Biskit, used for the United States, United Kingdom, Mexico and Venezuela as well as other parts of South America.
Nabisco products are branded as Kraft in some other countries. All Nabisco 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. The proof of purchase on their products is marketed as a "brand seal".
Nabisco opened corporate offices as the National Biscuit Company in the world's first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building in the Chicago Loop in 1898.
For nearly a century, Nabisco has been one of the most widely recognized names in the American food industry. Today Nabisco Foods Group (formerly Nabisco Brands, Inc.) is among the world's largest manufacturers of cookies and crackers, featuring such famous brands as Oreo, Fig Newtons, and Premium Saltines.
Nabisco Brands was formed in 1981 through a merger of Nabisco and Standard Brands. In 1985 R. J. Reynolds Industries, Inc.. acquired Nabisco Brands in one of the largest takeovers in business history. The origins of Nabisco, however, date back to the formation of the National Biscuit Company at the end of the 19th century. In its early years, the company was usually called N.B.C. In 1941 the company adopted Nabisco, already a popular nickname, as the preferred abbreviation, but it was not until 1971 that Nabisco became the official corporate name.
The National Biscuit Company resulted from the 1898 merger of the midwestern American Biscuit Company, itself the result of the merger of 40 midwestern bakeries, and the eastern New York Biscuit Company, formed from eight bakeries and a smaller firm, the United States Baking Company. Thus, N.B.C. represented the culmination of decades of amalgamation within the biscuit industry. With 114 bakeries and a capital of $55 million, the Chicago-based company held a virtual monopoly on cookie and cracker manufacturing in the United States.
The chief architect of the 1898 merger and the first chairman of the new company was Adolphus Green. Green, a Chicago lawyer and shrewd businessman who had negotiated the American Biscuit Company merger, remained the guiding force at N.B.C. during the first 20 years of its existence. It was Green who was responsible for N.B.C.'s legendary emphasis on standardized, brand name products. Every N.B.C. bakery adhered to exact recipes and uniform standards of production, and N.B.C. developed products that could be nationally identified with the company. All of its merchandise was marked with the company's distinctive emblem: an oval topped by a cross with two bars. (Green found the symbol in a catalog of medieval Italian printers' marks, where it was said to represent the triumph of good over evil.)
Green decided to launch the National Biscuit Company by introducing a new line of biscuits. He chose the ordinary soda cracker, but gave N.B.C.'s an unusual octagonal shape and packaged it in a special protective container. Until then, crackers had been sold in bulk from cracker barrels or large crates, which did little to retard sogginess or spoilage. N.B.C. took crackers out of the barrel and put them into small cardboard boxes with the company's patented "In-er-Seal" waxed paper lining to retain freshness.
Novelty packaging was not enough. Green also commissioned the Philadelphia advertising agency N.W. Ayer & Son to come up with a catchy name for the new cracker. The Ayer agency suggested "Uneeda Biscuit" and also helped promote the product with illustrations of a rosy-cheeked boy clutching a box of Uneeda Biscuits. The boy was dressed in a rain coat and galoshes to call attention to the packaging's moisture-proof nature. The Uneeda Boy became one of the world's best-recognized trademarks.
N.B.C. was a pioneer in company advertising, spending an unprecedented $7 million in its first decade to promote its products. Across the country, newspapers, billboards, and posters queried, "Do you know Uneeda Biscuit?" By 1900, sales of Uneeda Biscuits surpassed 100 million packages, prompting Green to remark that Uneeda was the most valuable word in the English language.
A host of imitators attempted to cash in on the popularity of Uneeda, and the company's attorneys were kept busy defending N.B.C. trademarks against infringement. The company won injunctions against rival bakeries marketing "Iwanta," "Uwanta," and "Ulika" biscuits. By 1906 N.B.C. had successfully prosecuted 249 cases of copyright infringement.
The National Biscuit Company built its reputation on securing customer loyalty to recognized brands such as Uneeda. In the early years of the 20th century, the company concentrated on expanding its line of cookies and crackers. Older products originally created by Nabisco's precursor bakeries that continued to be successful included Fig Newtons and Premium Saltines. In 1902 N.B.C. introduced Barnum's Animal Crackers in the famous decorative box resembling a circus cage filled with animals. In 1912 both Lorna Doones and Oreos were created, the latter eventually becoming the world's best-selling cookie.
N.B.C. moved its headquarters from Chicago to New York in 1906, where the company's factory on Manhattan's lower west side was the world's largest bakery. Yet Adolphus Green still managed the biscuit conglomerate as if it were a small family business. Green disliked delegating power. He personally inspected every company bakery once or twice a year, and most local managers communicated directly with Green. Green's authoritarian style annoyed many of his colleagues and led to frequent resignations from the board of directors. As a result, when Green died in 1917, few of the original directors remained and company management was in disarray.
The most pressing task for Green's successor, Roy E. Tomlinson, was reorganizing N.B.C.'s administrative network. Tomlinson had worked his way up the corporate ladder and was sensitive to the various levels of command. He delegated greater authority to other directors and to middle management, and remained company head until the 1940s.
The year Tomlinson took over was the year America entered World War I. During the war N.B.C. produced a special bread ration for soldiers and Tomlinson acted as advisor to the United States Food Administration. Wartime rationing of wheat flour and sugar also meant that cookies were less sweet and crackers were made of corn meal and rye. Company advertisements at the time depicted Uncle Sam holding boxes of N.B.C. products with the patriotic caption "made as he says."
The 1920s were a period of great prosperity for N.B.C. The company built a number of new bakeries and, in 1925, established its first foreign subsidiary, in Canada. N.B.C. also expanded its product line to include pretzels, breakfast cereal, and ice cream cones. Much of this diversification came about through acquisitions of other companies. In 1928 N.B.C. purchased the Shredded Wheat Company for $35 million. That same year N.B.C. acquired the McLaren Consolidated Cone Corporation, the world's largest manufacturer of ice cream cones.
Nabisco's colophon, a diagonal ellipse with a series of antenna-like lines protruding from the top, forms the base of its logo 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; it may be derived from a medieval Italian printer's mark that represented "the triumph of the moral and good over the evil and worldly." Oreo cookies in Canada do not have the Nabisco Orb, as they are branded as Christie in that country. Elsewhere, the packaging is branded with the Kraft logo.
KKR and Gerstner have pledged not to dismember the company but to manage it for the long run. Nonetheless, in order to cover the company's monumental debt, RJR Nabisco does plan some asset sales; the first was its European cookie and cracker business to BSN, France's largest packaged-food group, for $2.5 billion.
New products provided ten percent of 1991 North American sales&mdashout double the industry average. This was due in part to the introductions--ranging from salty snacks to line extensions--doing well on their own, instead of stealing sales from other Nabisco brands. One of the most popular existing-brand ad-ons has been miniature versions of Oreo, the number-one cookie in the United States. To accommodate the smaller sandwich cookies, the company's Chicago bakery added computer-supported production lines costing millions of dollars. However, Mini Oreo cookies could not fully meet national distribution until mid-1992 due to high consumer demand in midwestern and southern states.
Mr. Phipps pretzel chips was named 1991 "New Product of the Year" by Food & Beverage Marketing magazine. Other new products included Fat-Free Mister Salty pretzels, Gummi Savers candy, LifeSavers Holes candy, Made 'Em Myself cookie kits, and Zings cracker chips. The LifeSavers brand is the United State's best-selling line of hard-roll candy.
The Fig Newtons' franchise has steadily grown throughout the years to include raspberry, apple, and strawberry flavors. The cookie's 100th anniversary in 1991 allowed Nabisco to launch a new promotional campaign that increased the brand's visibility. By 1992 a fat-free version came out and helped to place Fig Newtons as the third-best selling cookie in the United States--after Oreo and Chips Ahoy!, also Nabisco mainstays.
Aggressive advertising, promotion, and new biscuit product introductions also allowed Nabisco to expand its Latin American market--its primary international focus. For example, in Brazil, cookie and cracker sales increased by 39 percent in 1991.
Planters and LifeSavers were combined with Nabisco Brands as part of a total reorganization plan in 1991. With the Planters business revolving primarily around buying nuts at the best price and persistent merchandising, and the LifeSavers focus on keeping point-of-sale racks full, executives realized that they were two completely different entities. Similar blurred-priority situations were discovered, resulting in decentralized marketing, manufacturing, and new product development. Fleischmann's Division was created to focus on refrigerated products. The company's most marketing-intensive brands, like Grey Poupon dijon mustard and Milk-Bone dog biscuits, were reorganized into a Specialty Products Division. And a Food Service Division began marketing to restaurants, fast-food chains, airlines, schools, and others. Nabisco Brands was renamed Nabisco Foods Group.
In contrast, U.S. warehouse sales and logistics were consolidated. Nabisco Foods claims this move was not primarily to save money, but to allow sales representatives the ability to offer retailers a wider array of products at one time. By 1992, some supermarket industry analysts noticed that unit volume growth had become more difficult and that top managers would have to become more involved in the selling process in order to meet retailers' growing power.
By October of 1992, the Nabisco Foods Group had acquired Plush Pippin Corporation and Stella D'Oro Company. Plush Pippin, the Kent, Washington-based manufacturer of premium frozen pies, had $22 million in sales for 1991. Stella D'Oro, marketer of bread sticks and baked specialty treats, reported $65 million.
As Nabisco Foods Group tries to maximize profitability, it must face the fact that most Nabisco bakeries are 30 to 35 years old and in need of modernization. Since the major reconstruction phase of the 1950s, the company has neglected capital improvements. On the other hand, Nabisco's famous brand names are a tremendous strength. Ritz, Oreo, Triscuit--few companies can claim so many products that are household words. These brands, along with Nabisco Brand's recent reorganization and string of acquisitions, should keep the company in the forefront of the food industry.
Principal Subsidiaries: Fleischmann's Division; LifeSavers Division; Nabisco Biscuit Co.; Nabisco Brands Ltd. (Canada); Nabisco International Incorporated; Planters Division; Specialty Products Division.
Statistics:
Wholly owned subsidiary of RJR Nabisco, Inc.
Incorporated: 1898 as the National Biscuit Company
Employees: 39,000
Sales: $6.45 billion
SICs: 2064 Candy & Other Confectionery Products; 2041 Flour & Other Grain Mill Products; 2043 Cereal Breakfast Foods; 2047 Dog & Cat Food; 2052 Cookies & Crackers; 2079 Shortening, Table Oils, & Other Edible Fats & Oils; 2099 Food Preparations
Address:
7 Campus Drive
Parsippany, New Jersey 07054
U.S.A.
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