JOHN MORRELL & CO.

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The official company website:  John Morrell & Co.

HISTORY

The following is an excerpt from the book Ideas that Became Big Business by Clinton Woods. Published by Founders, Inc. Baltimore, MD, 1959, 414 pages.

Buy this book: Ideas That Became Big Business

The John Morrell Story

"Because an English boy in an Irish village saw an Indian name on an Iowa packing case, the oldest packing company in the United States built its largest plant in Ottumwa.

The English boy was Thomas D. Foster, the Irish town Kilkenny, and the Indian name that of Ottumwa, Iowa. The words were on a box of American bacon which the boy was unpacking at a John Morrell & Co. (an English concern) branch in Kilkenny, Ireland. They conjured up visions of far-off lands, romance and adventure and made a deep impression on his memory.

Some years after his youthful imagination had been fired by the sight of that "Ottumwa," T. D. Foster established a United States branch of John Morrell & Co. in Ottumwa, Iowa. The year was 1877.

When the Morrell company observed its first 100 years in business in 1927, the late T. Henry Foster recounted the history of the firm in a pamphlet titled "Oranges and the Fruits of 100 Years."

There was good reason for selecting that title, for what is now the fourth largest meat packing company in the United States stems directly from the sale of a bargeload of oranges in Bradford, England, in 1927.

The story of the Morrell company begins there with George Morrell, a woolcomber born to poverty; his wife, Elizabeth and her uncle, Robert Hubie, who departing this life, bequeathed to his niece the sum of 80 pounds sterling, something less than $400 at the then current rate of exchange. The bequest was paid in cash and very likely it was more money than either George or Elizabeth had ever seen before.

Soon after, on a misty morning in October, 1827, George Morrell, picking his way to work in the early darkness, saw a canal boat laden with golden fruit--oranges, more than likely from Seville--which had come up from the North Sea to be sold to the highest bidder. Then and there he determined to buy the bargeload of oranges and become a merchant and trader on his own account.

The oranges were purchased and soon disposed of at a profit on the streets of Bradford. A further investment was made and with the new stock, a stall was rented in the Bradford Public Market. Soon George Morrell became a full-fledged fruit merchant doing a successful business. About 1830 it was decided to add provisions to the line and soon a thriving business was being carried on in ham, bacon, cheese, butter, flour and meal.

By 1834 the business had grown to such an extent that a building was leased and a partnership formed under the name of George Morrell & Sons. Of the sons, John was the leader and after the business had passed through the financial crises of 1842, became the head, his father retiring from active connection with the firm. At this time the name was changed to John Morrell & Co.

Several years prior to this change another family became connected with the business through the employment of a young Englishman, William Foster, an orphan left homeless and almost friendless when only 10 years of age. Foster eventually became one of the firm's most valuable employees, closely identifying himself with his employer, John Morrell, by marrying his sister, Mary, in 1845. In 1847 a son, Thomas D. Foster, was born to them--a son destined to got to America and assume an active part in the development of the business in a way never dreamed of by John Morrell or his father George.

Thomas D. Foster and John H. Morrell, the great-grandson of the founder, were the men most actively identified with the development of the business in the United States.

The first venture into the new world came when a New York office of the Morrell company was opened in 1864. The first packing house was established in London, Canada, in 1868, followed by one in Chicago in 1871.

Despite these seemingly successful operations, T. D. Foster recommended that a plant be opened in the midwest, he being one of the first to recognize the advantage of locating packing plants near the choice livestock supplies of the American corn belt.

Foster had arrived in Chicago to open a packing plant there just a few weeks before the Great Fire of October, 1871. The business, however, was established and continued in Chicago for many years. In 1877, on Foster's recommendation it was decided to establish a plant at some country point nearer the source of the livestock supply. This led him to visit Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Keokuk, Sioux City, Omaha, Kansas City and Ottumwa.

"I chose Ottumwa," he said, "because of the railroad facilities, the abundant water supply, the proximity of the raw material, the natural beauty of the city 'set on its seven hills' and the friendliness of the people."

So it was that in 1877 Foster leased an idle packing plant in Ottumwa and began operations. The following year the land on which the present plant stands was purchased and a building erected. In 1888 the Chicago plant was closed and all slaughtering operations centered in Ottumwa.

The panic of 1893 proved to be the death of many business organizations which were unable to secure sufficient loans to tide them over the difficult shoals of falling markets and mounting expenditures. By this time, however, Foster had proved his ability as a financier as well as his expertness as a packer and his credit was sufficiently well established to enable him to secure funds when the company's treasury needed ready cash.

But with the panic came a disaster that well-nigh forced John Morrell & Co., Ltd. into bankruptcy. On the evening of July 12, 1893, a devastating fire almost destroyed the Ottumwa plant. The very records on which the company's claim for insurance against loss could be based were lost.

Many going about the smoking ruin shook their heads and predicted the company would never recover. Not so Thomas D. Foster. "It looks pretty bad," he said, "but we are not busted yet." The echo of the motto on the Foster coat of arms must have been running through his mind as he walked amid the ruins of his plant--Si fractus fortis, "If broken be brave."

The Ottumwa plant weathered that storm--and many others--and had prospered for some years, when, during the winter of 1907-08, Foster saw the necessity of expanding his manufacturing facilities if the company as to continue the steady growth which it had enjoyed since its inception in 1827. After surveying possible sites in Minnesota and the Dakotas, Foster chose Sioux Falls, S.D. At the time there seemed little to indicate this would be good country in which to locate a meat packing company but the territory adjacent to Sioux Falls eventually became one of the country's largest hog producing areas.

In June, 1909 the Morrell company began operations in a leased plant in Sioux Falls. Within a year it became necessary to seek additional space, so land adjacent to the plant was purchased and ground for the first of the new buildings was broken in May, 1910. Today the plant is one of the most compact, complete and up to date in the country--one of the best in the industry. Its 50th Anniversary in Sioux Falls was celebrated in May, 1959.

There was unbroken continuity of Morrell-foster family management down through the years from 1827 to late 1953--a record that is probably unique in the annals of any business. That continuity of management was interrupted for the first time in more than 126 years when W. W. McCallum was elected president and chief executive officer of John Morrell & Co. on December 3, 1953.

In addition to its major meat packing plants in Ottumwa and Sioux Falls, John Morrell & Co. has packing plants in Philadelphia, Estherville, Iowa and Madison, S.D. Processing plants are located in Chicago; Los Angeles and Oakland, Cal.' Memphis, Tenn.; Mobile, Ala.; Vancleave, Mississippi and Minneapolis, Minn. Branches are in Aberdeen, S. D.; Fargo, N.D.; Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth, Minn. and San Francisco and there are sales offices in numerous cities. There are two plants in Great Britain.

The company's famous Red Heart three-flavor dog food and Red Heart cat food are manufactured at several locations on a contract basis as well as at the company's Ottumwa and Los Angeles plants. One plant at Vancleave, Mississippi is owned by John Morrell & Co. and is an important manufacture of Red Heart cat food.

The corporate relationship between the two branches of the business now is reversed--John Morrell & Co. in the United States is the parent, the English companies (of which there are two) being subsidiaries of the corporation here.

As is the case with most meat packers, the company's fiscal year closes in late October or early November. When the fiscal year ended November 1, 1958, the annual report of John Morrell & Co. showed net sales and operating revenues of $401,684,902."