Milk-Bone is a brand of dog biscuit. It was created in 1908 by the F.H. Bennett Biscuit Company, which operated a bakery on the Lower East Side of New York City. Originally named "Maltoid", the biscuit was a bone-shaped treat made from minerals, meat products, and milk. The biscuits are made exclusively in Buffalo, New York.[1]
Sometime between 1915 and 1926, the biscuit was simply named "Milk-Bone", owing to the high composition of cow's milk. In 1931, the bakery was acquired by the National Biscuit Company (now Nabisco). The biscuit was the only Bennett product carried over after the acquisition.
Over the next few decades, the Milk-Bone was expanded to include a number of different flavors, such as chicken and beef. The marketing focus was also shifted from Milk-Bone being merely a dog treat to a product that promoted cleaner teeth and better breath. Nabisco, under the ownership of Kraft Foods, sold the Milk-Bone rights to Del Monte Foods in May 2006.
Del Monte Foods renamed their pet products division Big Heart Pet Brands. This division was spun off in 2014 to create "Del Monte Pacific Limited".[2]
A box of Milk-Bone treats makes an early product placement appearance in the 1924 silent film The Tomboy, and this product was the basis for a line from the TV sitcom Cheers, spoken by George Wendt's character Norm: "It's a dog-eat-dog world and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear."
A box of Milk-Bone Biscuits can be seen, in cartoon form, in Mickey's Surprise Party (1939), a theatrical advertisement/cartoon short produced by Walt Disney Productions for Nabisco. Pluto is seen presenting Minnie's dog Fifi with a box of Milk-Bone Biscuits; she happily accepts them and thanks Pluto by kissing him.
Nabisco is an American manufacturer of cookies and snacks headquartered in East Hanover, New Jersey. The company is a subsidiary of Illinois-based Mondelēz International.
The J.M. Smucker Company, also known as Smuckers, is an American manufacturer of food and beverage products. Headquartered in Orrville, Ohio, the company was founded in 1897 as a maker of apple butter. J.M. Smucker currently has three major business units: consumer foods, pet foods, and coffee. Its flagship brand, Smucker's, produces fruit preserves, peanut butter, syrups, frozen crustless sandwiches, and ice cream toppings.
Scooby Snacks are a fictional snack food that appear in Scooby-Doo. In the show, they are often used as an incentive by Fred, Daphne, and Velma to convince Scooby-Doo and Shaggy to participate in dangerous or frightening schemes, such as acting as bait for a monster. Shaggy and Scooby will generally refuse at first, with one of the other characters convincing them by saying, "Would you do it for a Scooby Snack?"
Meow Mix is a variety of dry and wet cat food known for its advertising jingle. It is a product of The J.M. Smucker Company as of March 23, 2015. Meow Mix was introduced in 1974 and sells many flavors, including Original Choice and Seafood Medley. It also is known for selling Alley Cat dry cat food. Their current slogan is "it's the only brand cats ask for by name."
Sunshine Biscuits, formerly known as The Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company, is a defunct independent American baker of cookies, crackers, and cereals. The company, which became a brand on a few products such as Cheez-It, was purchased by Keebler Company in 1996, which was purchased by Kellogg Company in 2001. Around then, Sunshine Biscuits was headquartered in Elmhurst, Illinois, where Keebler was located until 2001.
Gravy Train is an American dog food brand currently marketed by Post Consumer Brands. On April 28, 2023, it was one of several brands sold by The J.M. Smucker Company to Post Holdings, in a deal valued at $1.2 billion.
Del Monte Foods Inc. is an American food production and distribution company headquartered in Walnut Creek, California. Del Monte Foods is one of the country's largest producers, distributors and marketer of branded processed food for the U.S. retail market, generating approximately $1.73 billion of annual sales. Its portfolio of brands includes Del Monte, S&W, Contadina, College Inn, Kitchen Basics, Joyba, and Take Root. Greg Longstreet is the current Chief Executive Officer of the Del Monte Foods. Several Del Monte products hold the number one or two market share position. The company also produces, distributes and markets private-label food.
A dog biscuit is a hard, biscuit-based, dietary supplement for dogs or other canines, similar to human snack food.
Kibbles 'n Bits is a brand name for dog food that The J.M. Smucker Co. decided to include among the pet food brands sold to Post Holdings. On April 28, 2023, PH announced that it had completed the acquisition of Kibbles 'n Bits, which is now marketed by Post Consumer Brands.
9Lives is the name of a brand name for cat food launched in 1959. Better known today by its mascot, Morris, it has four varieties of dry food, and five lines of wet food in various flavors.
Eagle Family Foods Group LLC, doing business as Eagle Foods, is an American food company based in Cleveland, Ohio. The company was founded in 2015 by Paul Smucker Wagstaff after acquiring ownership of the Borden canned milk brands.
Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance Pet Foods is an American pet food manufacturer with its headquarters located in Burbank, Los Angeles, California. Established in 1989 by actor Dick Van Patten, the company markets itself as "Food For a Lifetime" and promotes itself as having "the finest food you can buy for your pet." A subsidiary of Big Heart Pet Brands, it was previously owned by the J.M. Smucker Company until February 2021, when it was sold to Nexus Capital Management LP.
Pet, Inc. was an American company that was the first to commercially produce evaporated milk as a shelf-stable consumer product with its "PET Milk" brand. While evaporated milk was popular before refrigerators were common in homes, sales peaked in the 1950s and it is now a niche product used in baking and as a cooking ingredient.
Spillers Ltd was a British company that owned flour milling operations, operated bakeries and also sold pet food and equine feeds.
Mickey's Surprise Party is a 1939 American animated short film directed by Hamilton Luske, produced by Walt Disney Productions and distributed by National Biscuit Company. It was the 105th short in the Mickey Mouse film series to be released, and the second for that year. Mickey's Surprise Party is the first cartoon with Mickey and Minnie Mouse in their current designs, created by animator Fred Moore.
Hostess Brands is an American-based bakery company formed in 2013. It owns several bakeries in the United States that produce snack cakes under the Hostess and Dolly Madison brand names and its Canadian subsidiary, Voortman Cookies Limited, produces wafers and cookies under the Voortman brand name. It is headquartered in Lenexa within Johnson County, Kansas. Its main operating subsidiaries are Hostess Brands, LLC, and Voortman Cookies Limited.
Big Heart Pet Brands was an American company that manufacturers, distributes and markets branded pet food and other products for the U.S. retail market. Formerly a subsidiary of J.M. Smucker Co., it was headquartered at the One Maritime Plaza in San Francisco.
Mark Timothy Smucker is an American businessman who has been the president and CEO of The J.M. Smucker Company since May 2016. He is the fifth-generation member of the Smucker family to lead the business, a now publicly traded Fortune 500 company encompassing coffee, packaged food, and pet food, headquartered in Orrville, Ohio.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
