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 Uneeda Biscuit Story

The humble biscuit or cracker was the earliest form of unleavened bread. First made of pounded cereal grains and water and toasted over a fire, the biscuit nourished mankind without a drastic change in its basic make-up until a century ago.

"Shortly before the turn of the century a dramatic idea was born which revolutionized not only the biscuit baking business, but paved the way for a host of developments which affected the entire food business. In the process, an idea then unheard of began a big business. The idea was UNEEDA BISCUIT, the man behind it was a visionary ex-librarian turned lawyer named Adolphus W. Green and the company was "Nabisco," the household word for National Biscuit Company. To introduce them properly, some background settings are indicated.

For centuries, biscuits were baked of unleavened dough, a simple mixture of flour, water and salt. Tough and hard, they were made to keep well on long sea voyages. When Columbus sailed for the new world biscuits were the ships' fare; 300 years later Clipper ships sailing from Atlantic ports carried the same kind of biscuit, called variously ship's bread, pilot bread, sea biscuit or hardtack.

The biscuit business got its start in America when, in 1792 Theodore Pearson began making thick, hard biscuits in the seacoast town of Newburyport, Mass. The Yankees began calling them "crackers" probably because of the sound they made as they were broken.

In 1801 a man named Josiah Bent opened a bakery at Milton, Mass. and began baking what became famous as water crackers. Bent, like Pearson, made his product of flour and water, but rolled the dough many more times, still by hand, of course. The result was a product with a smoother texture. In 1805 Artemus Kennedy opened the third bakery in this country at what is now Arlington, Mass.

Around 1830 someone tried to get a lighter cracker by letting the dough ferment. To neutralize the acids, soda was added and thus was born the "soda cracker." It was the hard, nearly indestructible water cracker, however, which nourished the armies in the Civil War. By the end of the conflict, there were many small local cracker bakeries scattered throughout the nation, selling in their local areas. Poor transportation and undependable quality kept the cracker business in chaos and the consumer in bewilderment.

It was a period of intense competition and small regional mergers began in the early 1890's. In 1898 a group of investors consolidated four of the larger regional cracker bakers and formed National Biscuit Company with headquarters in Chicago. A. W. Green became National Biscuit's first president. A thin, scholarly man with a quick temper, great courage and a keen sales sense, Green realized quickly that he should scrap the hodgepodge of brands used by the 150 odd bakeries of member companies and concentrate on certain chosen products which would be identified with the new company.

At the time, crackers were sold in barrels, doled out by grocers in paper bags. The crackers were subject to pilferage and pawing over, to attacks of moisture, microbes and mice. If the cracker barrel signified grass roots of democracy to some, to Green its dubious sanitary value suggested time for a change.

Green's basic idea was to sell crackers nationally in a package with an inner lining of waxed paper so that the product would be protected against germs, dirt, handling and moisture. At the time, the idea seemed preposterous to his contemporaries. Undaunted, Green further insisted that the package should be small enough so that its contents would be consumed quickly and he demanded that it should sell for 5 cents.

The product selected was a new variety of soda cracker, lighter and flakier than those already on the market. To give it a distinctive shape, the four corners were clipped off.

It was Green's junior law partner, Frank M. Peters, who devised a method of putting a sheet of waxed paper on a carton blank and folding and interfolding the two together as a unit. Peters also devised a rapid method for forming the cartons and to this day both the Peters carton and forming machines are basic to the cracker industry.

When Green was satisfied with the product and package he began looking for a name. A Classical scholar, he dwelled on Greek words, but an advertising man suggested a list of coined words. Of these the name Uneeda Cracker seemed promising. Green, however, felt the term "Biscuit" suggested a higher grade product so Uneeda Biscuit came into being. Still needed was a package design to go over the plain carton shell. Sketching a design from one of the Grolier book bindings in his library, Green suggested the border design still seen on every package of Uneeda Biscuit.

He had the product, the package, the name, and the design. He also faced the doubts, fears and opposition of some of his own associates. Forging ahead with argument, persuasion, Green demanded and got a million dollar advertising appropriation. This new Uneeda was going to be launched in style and indeed it was sent off in the most ambitious advertising campaign of its day.

A little more than a year after the founding of National Biscuit Company, the first nationally advertised "brand name" bakery product went on the market. Early in January, 1899, the residents of Chicago were perplexed to see a single word boldly printed in their newspapers: "Uneeda." The same strange word appeared on billboards. The next day they saw two words, "Uneeda Biscuit." In the days following the messages read "Do you know Uneeda Biscuit?" "Do YOU know Uneeda Biscuit?" "Do you KNOW Uneeda Biscuit?" Of Course, Uneeda Biscuit; Certainly!!"

Advertising spread from Chicago to cover the country. Newspapers, magazines, theatre programs, posters and barns proclaimed Uneeda Biscuit. Demand rose for the new product; Green's faith in his idea paid off, and the product launched the largest biscuit and cracker business in the world.

The instant success of this packaged cracker started a revolution in the food industry. Into the discard went the bulk containers and paper bags. To replace them came a steady stream of attractively packaged "brand name" products, advertised and sold throughout the country. It took this revolution in food packaging and selling to pave the way for development of present day food stores.

Today, National Biscuit Company, with 26,000 employees, 75,000 shareholders, does business throughout the world. Subsidiaries operate in Canada, England, Mexico and Venezuela. The company sells over $400 million worth of goods a year, operates numerous bakeries, flour mills, carton plants and special units including the industry's finest research center. The familiar red Nabisco seal identifies nearly 250 different cracker, cookie, cereal, pet food, cake mix, ice cream cone, pretzel, bread, dated and dried fruit products."

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." - Virginia Woolf

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