Junk Food and Fast Food

Tootsie Roll

In the late nineteenth century, the word tootsie was slang for a girl or sweetheart. In 1896, Leo Hirshfield, an immigrant from Austria, opened a candy store in New York. One of his employees began making a small, log-shaped, chewy chocolate caramel. In 1905, Hirshfield named the candy after his daughter, Clara, who was nicknamed […]

Toys

America’s first commercial confection, Cracker Jack, targeted children from its earliest days. The problem was how to reach children at a time before radio and television. The company advertised in children’s magazines but it needed something better. Beginning in 1910, it began inserting into every package of Cracker Jack a coupon that could be redeemed […]

Training

A major problem confronting the fast food industry has been the rapid turnover of employees, most of whom last only a few weeks or months before quitting. Fast food chains have consistently tried to routinize their operations into a system of very simple rules, such as what activities employees should perform and how they should […]

3 Musketeers

In 1932, Mars, Inc. introduced the 3 Musketeers Bar, which is a chocolate-flavored nougat covered with milk chocolate. Compared with the company’s Snickers bar, 3 Musketeers is sweeter and has more chocolate flavor. The company claims that the chocolate bar was named after its original composition: three pieces and three flavors—vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. When […]

Tie-ins

Tie-ins are broadly defined as promotional campaigns that link two different media. Movie tie-ins began in the 1920s, particularly between movies and print media. Movie companies wanted free publicity for their films, hence they encouraged magazines and newspapers to print stories about the actors, actresses, or about how their films were made. During the 1990s, […]

Toblerone

Toblerone bars. In 1908, Theodore Tobler and his production manager, Emil Baumann, invented the Toblerone in Bern, Switzerland. It was an unusual triangular-shaped chocolate bar with almond and honey nougat. The name derives from Tobler (the name of the company and family) plus torrone, an Italian nougat specialty. In 1970, the Tobler Company merged with […]

Television

Television technology had been perfected by the late 1930s, but monetary and technological demands during World War II stopped early experimentation. When the war ended, television burst on the scene but few Americans could afford to buy television sets, and the quality was poor. In the 1950s, the price for televisions declined and disposable income […]

Theaters

When motion pictures arrived in the early twentieth century, they drew huge audiences, which were prime targets for snack food sales, but theater owners refused to sell them. To some owners, vending concessions was an unnecessary nuisance or “beneath their dignity.” In the rowdy burlesque days, hawkers went through the aisles with baskets, selling snack […]

Thomas, Dave

Wendy’s founder R. David Thomas (1932-2002) was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Six weeks later, he was adopted by Tex and Auleva Thomas of Kalamazoo, Michigan. At the age of 12, he was hired for a job at a barbecue restaurant in Knoxville, Tennessee. Four years later, he dropped out of high school to […]

Tang

General Foods Corporation acquired the Perkins Products Company, maker of Kool-Aid, in 1953.It began experimenting with Kool-Aid and the company came up with a powdered orange-flavored breakfast drink that was fortified with vitamins. In 1958, this new product was released under the brand name Tang. It did not become popular until the National Aeronautic and […]

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