The Making of a Food Conglomerate

I called earlier today to the Help Desk for Con Agra to make a quality control" inquiry. We recently had the Hungry Man Spicey Fried Chicken. Mine had THREE pieces of chicken and my wife's had TWO. I thought that had happened at least once before. I know it happened this time. The box says it contains dark portions of chicken but no quantity. The box illustration seems to indicate three pieces.

The pleasant woman took down the information and would forward everything to Quality Control. We would be receiving coupons too! You can't beat that with a stick.

Afterwards, looking into who owns Banquet (Hungry Man), I found almost three dozen brands that Con Agra has acquired over the years (I stopped counting at 27). Many, if not all, were at one time free-standing companies, putting out  a product, paying wages and paying taxes. Names like Swiss Miss, Wolf Brand Chili, Peter Pan, Va Camp's and Chef Boyardee were household brands, free of large corporate entanglements. Three margarine brands...Parkay, Fleischmann's and Blue Bonnet are now under one umbrella. Hunt and Wesson...you guessed it. Once they sat on shelves as independent firms. At one time these two were part of Beatrice Foods, Hunt-Wesson-Beatrice but Auntie Bea split them off later on. These are companies I "grew up" with. Libby's? Same thing.

While change and progress do have their positive side and various "ups" regarding sales, marketability, profit and taxes for mega businesses like Con Agra, it still seems sad that the old stand-bys are now just names on a corporate roster, still making what they do for American breakfasts, lunches and dinners but now without that sense of "intimacy" that goes with knowing that Libby's or Gulden's Mustard or Hebrew National were at one time independent and not merely cogs in a very large food producing machine.

I remember way back in the 1960's when we bought Marie Callender pies for the holidays at the local franchise in La Puente. And, I think, wistfully, that was a time when a company's individuality was still paramount in America.