Home Grown, Family Owned
Indiana food brands span decades

by Jennifer Kapp

(April 2002) - The time-honored tradition of producing high-quality brand-name food products is alive and well among the family-owned businesses scattered around Indiana. These companies buy crops from the same trusted growers year after year. They hold true to the ingredients and ingenuity that made their parents' and grandparents' products popular decades ago.

Some Indiana brands have become so well known their names are almost synonymous with the product-for years, Clabber Girl meant baking powder; CoCo Wheat, a hot flavored cereal, though no one would ever think to ask for it that way. Other Indiana brands have gained regional and national recognition through the years simply because they were constantly in the pantry.

CLABBER GIRL
Clabber Girl baking powder-the best-selling baking powder in the United States-sold 7.8 million cans last year throughout all 50 states and 28 other countries. The Clabber brand began leavening bread in 1899 at a time when the word clabber referred to a leavening process requiring milk. In 1923, the company changed the brand name to get away from the reference to milk and redirected the word clabber to apply to the widely recognized girl on the label-the Clabber Girl. The Clabber Girl Corp. owned by Hulman & Co. continues to sell baking powder to retail, foodservice and industrial markets under the Clabber Girl brand.

For the first time ever in October 2000, the company launched a second product under the Clabber Girl brand name-corn starch, packaged in cans. "The company had been buying large amounts of corn starch, and we knew we had a better way of packaging it for the retail market," says spokesman Tom Payne. While researching the market for the new product, the company discovered its corn starch product stood apart from the competition because it was not genetically modified and it had been processed to form a finer, smoother powder. "It won't lump up on you," Payne says. Clabber Girl corn starch is now available in 30 states.

Clabber Girl brand memorabilia will be showcased in the company's new museum under construction on the first floor of the Hulman Building in Terre Haute. The company is restoring the building that was constructed in 1892, and the museum is slated to open in May.

POP WEAVER POPCORN
Pop Weaver sells microwave, caramel corn and plastic bags of popcorn in all 50 states and to some international markets. Weaver Popcorn Co. started in 1928 to market popcorn to snack food manufacturers and concessions operators.

In the early 1980s, Pop Weaver joined the microwave popcorn craze and now offers a variety of different gourmet popcorn flavors. The company recently launched a variety of kettle corn, which has a sweet and salty flavor mimicking the kettle corn sold at state fairs.

"We supply more popcorn by weight throughout the world than any other company. We are the world leader in pounds," says Doug Dent, the company's marketing director. A fourth generation of Weavers now works in the family business.

COCO WHEAT
CoCo Wheat flavored hot cereal became the first in a series of brand-name products offered by Warsaw-based Little Crow Foods in 1930. "Customers want faster and easier products; that's been going on for awhile," says owner Dennis Fuller. "In 1930, people were adding their own cocoa to Cream of Wheat."

Through the years, the company added Fast Shake pancake mixes, Miracle Maize corn bread and muffin mixes and Bakin' Miracle coating mix brands to the lineup now marketed as the Little Crow "family of brands."

"We sell one thing or another in almost every state," Fuller says. Fast Shake-a pancake mix packaged in a plastic bottle with enough room to add water and shake up the batter-has the widest reach, from Florida up the East Coast and west to Minnesota. "It's not as sensitive to weather, plus it's a cool little concept."

Though the company was founded in 1903 as Little Crow Milling Co., a major fire prevented the company from continuing to process grain. Little Crow began selling pancake mix, instead, launching the company's value-added theme. Little Crow Foods is in its fourth generation of family ownership.

HURST HAMBEENS
Hurst's Hambeens brand beans find customers in all 50 states buying 20 varieties of beans packaged into more than 100 different products. In Florida, customers want black-eyed peas; in Texas, it's pinto beans; in New York, lentils; and in Indiana, Great Northern beans. The brand sells in all 50 states and reaches military bases in Europe and the Pacific Rim. In all, the company sells more than 10 million pounds of beans every year.

In the 1960s, the family-owned business started adding a ham flavor packet to a bag of pinto beans. In the 1980s, the company started mingling different beans together and adding flavor packets of spices or seasonings to create special recipes. Hurst's Hambeens brand added the Cajun 15 Bean Soup, Confetti Lentil Soupreme and Pasta Fagioli to the assortment, offering convenience and inspiration for busy or inexperienced cooks, says company president Rick Hurst. His grandfather started N.K. Hurst Co. in 1938. The company has packaged beans from its current location in Indianapolis since 1947.

RED GOLD TOMATOES
Red Gold brand tomato products dominate 26 major markets from Nashville to Minneapolis and from St. Louis to the East Coast. "The brand is the No. 1 brand in the markets we're in," says Maurie Fettig, executive vice president for sales and marketing.

Orestes-based Red Gold sells 26 varieties of whole, diced, peeled and flavored tomatoes, salsa, ketchup and tomato juice under the brand name. The Red Gold brand became the first branded diced tomato product to find success in the retail arena, and now diced tomatoes make up the fastest-growing segment of the industry, he says.

In 1942, the company started as a producer of tomato products for private labels. It was founded by Grover Hutcherson, grandfather of current president and CEO Brian Reichart, whose younger brother and sister also are involved in the business. In 1970, the company launched the Red Gold brand in Kentucky and Tennessee. The brand's distribution expanded into Indiana, Ohio and Illinois in 1985. The company extended the brand into the Chicago market in 1998.

Besides producing the Red Gold brand products, the company continues to make private-label tomato products-whole, diced, juice and ketchup. One in four cans merchandised in the United States comes from a Red Gold plant. More than half of all store-brand tomatoes and two-thirds of all store-brand ketchups in the U.S. come from a Red Gold plant. During fresh peak season, the company can process up to 7,000 tons of tomatoes per day and fill up to 5.5 million cans, bottles and jars with tomatoes and tomato products per day.

COUSIN WILLIE'S POPCORN
Cousin Willie's brand original and microwave popcorn started making the rounds in the 1980s. Now the brand reaches retailers, concessions operators and snack-food manufacturers in a 400-mile radius from its hometown in Ramsey. Like the popcorn, Cousin Willie-also known as Wilfred Sieg Jr.-travels to trade shows and grand openings throughout the distribution area.

Ramsey Popcorn started in 1944 when the Siegs began selling popcorn they grew on the family's dairy farm out of the back of a truck. In the 1960s, Wilfred and his three brothers began selling Purdu Pop brand popcorn.

In the 1980s, the family-owned business launched Cousin Willie's popcorn in plastic bags and microwave bags with Cousin Willie depicted in a beard, plaid shirt and red suspenders, just as he looks, according to Veronica Battista, spokeswoman for the company and one of Wilfred's daughters.

Recently the company added kettle corn and "exploding butter" varieties. Besides these branded products, the company sells private-label products. In all, Ramsey Popcorn sells about 50 million pounds of popcorn per year.

MAPLE LEAF FARMS DUCKS
The Maple Leaf Farms brand sells whole ducks, duck parts and precooked duck products to retail stores and fine restaurants from coast to coast. When the business started in 1958, the strongest demand for whole duck and duck parts was on the coasts, in ethnic markets and in fine-dining circles.

In the 1970s, the company expanded the Maple Leaf Farms brand to include precooked duck products. In 2000, the company launched a line of Maple Leaf Farms appetizers made from duck. Last year, the company introduced five flavors of marinated duck breast. "They became the fastest-growing products in the foodservice division in the history of our company," says Eric LeBlanc, director of marketing. The flavors are pepper-crusted, Cajun, tequila lime, honey orange and roasted garlic. Maple Leaf Farms plans to introduce the marinated products to retailers.

"Many retailers are competing to get the shopper with the disposable income into their stores. We did research and found that when a duck customer shops your store, if duck is in the cart, they will spend $43 more than if the duck is not in the store," he says.

The family-owned company, started by Donald Wentzel and operated by his son-in-law Terry Tucker and the Tucker family, processes more than 15 million ducks a year.

SECHLER'S PICKLES
Sechler's brand pickles come in 39 varieties, from sweet raisin and sweet apple cinnamon pickles to an award-winning jalapeño sweet relish. About 70 percent of sales take place within a 250-mile radius of the company's headquarters near St. Joe, where the Sechler family first started making pickles in 1914 as St. Joe Valley Brands.

Ralph Sechler & Son Inc. launched the Sechler brand name in 1948. After decades of selling to the retail market, the company renewed its focus on developing unique varieties of sweet pickles. "As a small family-owned business, we were not going to be able to compete on what I call commodity pickles," says David Sechler, third-generation family owner of the business. Sechler's brand pickles use only beet or cane granulated sugar. "It makes all the difference in flavor."