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 Orb", 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 do not have the Nabisco Orb as they are branded as Christie in that country. Elsewhere, the packaging is branded with the Kraft logo.

Merger history

Nabisco dates its founding back to 1898^[1], 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.

A Nabisco silo in Toledo, Ohio

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 Life Savers Candies. The company was then renamed Nabisco Brands, Inc. At that time, it bought Curtiss Candy Company, makers of Baby Ruth and Butterfinger.

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 1990 it sold the Baby Ruth and Butterfinger brands to Nestlé.

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 approach 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. http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/disclosures/cases/3408.pdf

References

External links

• Nabisco Website
• NabiscoWorld
• Adolphus Green, first head of N.B.C. from Kraft Foods website
• Story of Nabisco from the Kraft Canada website
• FTC summary of competitive concerns about the 2000 acquisition of Nabisco
• From Oreos and Mallomars to Today's Chelsea Market -- The New York Times

See also

• Nabisco Brands, Inc.

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