 | |
| Industry | Frozen food |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1925 in Pottstown, Pennsylvania |
| Founders | Amanda Smith |
| Headquarters | |
| Parent | Schwan Food Company |
| Website | Official site |
Mrs. Smith's Pies (a.k.a. Mrs. Smith's Bakeries) is one of the largest frozen pie brands in the United States.
The company was founded by Amanda Smith, a homemaker from Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Her son Robert P. started selling slices of Amanda's own deep-dish, fruit-filled pies door-to-door, and at the local YMCA lunch counter. Later he added a mobile route and a small store. The demand for her pies led to the formation of the company "Mrs. Smith's Delicious Home Made Pies, Inc." in 1925. [1] There were four Mrs. Smith's Pies bakeries serving the Northeast United States by 1930, including 2 bakeries in Pennsylvania: one in York, and one in the Logan neighborhood of Philadelphia. There were also two Mid-Atlantic bakeries located in Silver Spring, Maryland and Portsmouth, Virginia. [2]
The company began producing frozen pies in 1952, five years after Amanda Smith died. [3] Amanda's grandson Robert C. Smith (d. 2010) held various executive positions at the company before being named president in 1972. [3] The company went public in May 1972. [4]
In 1976, the Kellogg Company purchased Mrs. Smith's Pies for $56 million. [3] [5] Kellogg's sold its bakery division to The J.M. Smucker Co. in 1994 for $84 million. [6] In May 1996, after a deal to sell the unit to ConAgra fell through, Smucker sold it to Flowers Foods. [7] In 2003, the brand was purchased by the Schwan Food Company. [8] The Mrs. Smith's Pies plant in Pottstown, Pennsylvania served as a landmark and significant employer for the better part of the twentieth century. Today, the plant is used to manufacture Mrs. Smith's pie tins. However the main pie plant was razed to make way for a residential development. Following the closure of the Pottstown pie facility in 1998, production of Mrs. Smith's pies was relocated to Stilwell, Oklahoma. [9]
Old HB, Inc., known as Hostess Brands from 2009 to 2013 and established in 1930 as Interstate Bakeries Corporation, was a wholesale baker and distributor of bakery products in the United States. Before its 2012 closure and liquidation, it owned the Hostess, Wonder Bread, Nature's Pride, Dolly Madison, Butternut Breads, and Drake's brands.
Pottstown is a borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. Pottstown was laid out in 1752–53 and named Pottsgrove in honor of its founder, John Potts. The old name was abandoned at the time of the incorporation as a borough in 1815. In 1888, the limits of the borough were considerably extended. Pottstown is the center of a productive farming and dairying region.
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.
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Tastykake is a line of snack foods manufactured by the Tasty Baking Company, headquartered at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Established in 1914 by Philip J. Baur and Herbert T. Morris and originally selling its product only in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, the company now distributes its products in several states on the East Coast, south to Florida, and has been gradually expanding across the United States.
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Swanson is a brand of TV dinners, broths, and canned poultry made for the North American and Hong Kong markets. The former Swanson Company was founded in Omaha, Nebraska, where it developed improvements of the frozen dinner. The TV dinner business is currently owned by Conagra Brands, while the broth business is currently owned by the Campbell Soup Company. TV dinner products currently sold under the brand include Swanson's Classics TV dinners and pot pies, and the current broth lineup includes chicken broth and beef broth.
Rich Products Corporation is a privately held multinational food products corporation headquartered in Buffalo, New York. The company was founded in 1945 by Robert E. Rich, Sr., after his development of a non-dairy whipped topping based on soybean oil, 21 years before Cool Whip. Since then, the company has expanded its non-dairy frozen food offerings and also supplies products to retailers, bakeries, and foodservice providers.
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Schwan's Company, formerly known as The Schwan Food Company, is a food company with approximately 7,500 employees. Having originated in the United States as a family-owned business, since 2019 the company has been a subsidiary of CJ CheilJedang of South Korea — with five major business units including Schwan's Consumer Brands, Schwan's Food Service, Strategic Partner Solutions and SFC Global Supply Chain. Schwan's Company no longer owns the home-delivery business that was known as Schwan's Home Service, which rebranded to Yelloh in 2023.
J&J Snack Foods Corporation (JJSFC) is an American manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of name brand snack foods and frozen beverages. Headquartered in Pennsauken, NJ, JJSF uses over 175 facilities for manufacturing, warehousing, and distributing located in 44 states, Mexico, and Canada. The company is listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market as "JJSFC", and serves both national and international markets.
The cuisine of Philadelphia was shaped largely by the city's mixture of ethnicities, available foodstuffs and history. Certain foods have become associated with the city.
Exton Square Mall is a shopping mall located in the Exton, Pennsylvania in West Whiteland Township in Chester County, Pennsylvania. The mall features a parking garage and food court. It is located at the crossroads of Chester County at the intersection of U.S. Route 30 Business and Pennsylvania Route 100. The mall is anchored by Macy's and Boscov's retail stores and a Round One Entertainment, an arcade and bowling center. It also contains dozens of smaller stores and a food court.
Flowers Foods, headquartered in Thomasville, Georgia, is a producer and marketer of packed bakery food. The company operates 47 bakeries producing bread, buns, rolls, snack cakes, pastries, and tortillas. Flowers Foods' products are sold regionally through a direct store delivery network that encompasses the East, South, Southwest, West, and the Northwest regions of the United States and are delivered nationwide to retailer's warehouses. It has made acquisitions of a number of bakeries and other food companies over the years, continuing through to the present day. As of February 2013, it had grown to be the "second-largest baking company in the United States".
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.
Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc. is the American corporate arm of the Mexican multinational bakery product manufacturing company Grupo Bimbo. It is the largest bakery company in the United States. The company, headquartered in Horsham, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, owns many fresh bread and sweet baked goods brands in the United States, including Entenmann's, Sara Lee, and Thomas'. It is also a top advertising sponsor for many major soccer teams around the globe.
Triangle Publications Inc. was an American media group based first in Philadelphia, and later in Radnor, Pennsylvania. It was a privately held corporation, with the majority of its stock owned by Walter Annenberg and his sisters. Its holdings consisted of newspapers, magazines, and radio stations. After nearly two decades of divestiture, it was folded into News Corporation in 1988.
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