Penick & Ford Ltd, Inc Patent #123632

[rnrhinton2]

Can anyone tell me anything about a bottle that I found. It it appoximately 5in x 3in. Has no markings other than on the bottom is says Penick and Ford Ltd, Inc. Patent #123632 and under the patent number is the number 6. I have found that Penick and Ford started in 1920 and had many products under the name. However other than some company information I have not been able to locate any information on this bottle. I would appreciate some help with this.

Sincerely,
Rita H.

 

[thturk]

The Penick & Ford / Bedford Era: 1920-1965

As the Douglas brothers began their starch works in Iowa, William Snydor Penick and his brother-in-law, James Polk Ford, formed a partnership in Shreveport, Louisiana, to replace barreled syrups and molasses with canned. At that time syrups and molasses were an important part of the basic diet of a large farm population, particularly tenants and sharecroppers in the Cotton Belt who operated on a "furnishing" system. Meat, meal, and molasses were the principal items "furnished" to the workers who produced the crop.

The partnership between Penick, a former vice-president of a bank, and Ford, a salesman, began in 1896, or 1898 by other accounts. As the company prospered, the business moved to Harvey, Louisiana, where sugarcane syrups and molasses were processed.

With the sales of corn syrup and cane syrups rising, Corn Products Refining Company(CPR) acquired a 25 percent interest in Penick & Ford. Unfortunately for CPR, Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting campaign resulted in a Supreme Court decision in 1913 under which CPR had to divest its interest in Penick & Ford. This interest was bought by F.T. (Fred) Bedford, the son of CPR's E.T. Bedford. He had had a falling out with his father and wanted to be on his own.

F.T. Bedford was largely responsible for developing the Karo and Mazola brands while at CPR. As the growth of P&F continued during World War I, F.T. Bedford established the Brer Rabbit label and pushed sales of syrup in the South and canned molasses in the North and West, where the taste and use of molasses date back to the West Indies imports from Colonial days. While in search of a wet-milling operation that wasn't owned by his father and the Glucose Trust, Fred discovered the remains of Douglas and Company after the 1919 explosion. He purchased the plant and incorporated it as Penick & Ford, Ltd. on February 7, 1920. By February of 1921 the newly rebuilt plant was producing corn syrup.

A severe drop in sugar prices worsened the already unfavorable economic conditions for Penick & Ford, and President W.S. Penick began to seek change. He felt that if the plant converted most of its production to starch, then Penick & Ford's economic status would change for the better. With help from several banks, sales of stock, and supposedly even Fred Bedford's mother, Penick & Ford got back on its feet in 1922, wielding 30,000 bushels a day. The sales department got a foothold in the starch market and by December of 1923 P&F was paying preferred dividends. In 1926 Penick resigned his presidency to become chairman of the board. Family members continued to hold stock in the firm.

P&F initially expanded horizontally, a move quite common in the business era of the times. They built a can plant, printed labels, made boxes, owned tank cars, built a sugar refinery, and bought a sugar mill and two plantations. These endeavors proved uneconomical in the long run as P&F found they could purchase supplies and services from outside specialists at lower costs.

P&F produced many private labels - Brer Rabbit Molasses, Brer Rabbit Syrup, Penick Syrup, Penick Salad Oil, Douglas Starch, Penford Corn Syrup, Penford Corn Sugar, and Douglas Feed. Under Bedford's leadership, they acquired other grocery lines, including Vermont Maid syrup in 1928 and My-T-Fine Desserts in 1934.

With the grocery business proliferating, top management was reluctant to support basic research. Dr. J.M. Widmer championed the cause at P&F. Emigrating from Switzerland in 1915, he worked for Douglas and Company before being recalled by the Swiss government during World War I. Due to a severe shortage of edible oil, he devised a method to extract oil from such nontraditional sources as grape seeds from winepresses, and the wooden crates used to ship soybeans. He returned to Cedar Rapids in 1921 as the technical director for F.T. Bedford's newly acquired plant, later (1952) becoming president of the company. It was Widmer who developed a method of recovering corn by-products (corn gluten for feed), and contributed to advances in the production of crystalline dextrose and corn oil. He also patented the bottling-up process that became standard in the industry.

To ensure an enhanced future, Widmer hired chemist Dr. Carl Kesler for his carbohydrate chemistry expertise and an intimate knowledge of the paper industry. He helped start a research lab in 1930. In the mid-'40s, P&F was already supplying oxidized starches for paper applications when Kesler and another P&F creative chemist, Erling Hjermstad, experimented to produce a dry starch from normal dent corn that would behave and perform as well as potato or tapioca starches. Using ethylene oxide in the process, they patented the Penford® Gums, which became the industry standard and today still command the lion's share of the dry starch specialty market in the paper industry. The name "Penford Gum" means hydroxyethylated starch to papermakers much as the brand name "Kleenex" means facial tissue to consumers.

Another father-son story was added to the company when J.M. Widmer's son joined the company, first working summers in the lab while working on his degree in chemical engineering at Iowa State University. He returned to P&F as a chemical engineer after earning a degree in industrial management from Harvard graduate school. He served three years in World War II, as did many other company employees, and came back as a process engineer. He moved to New York in 1954 to become general manager of consumer goods plants, transferring back in 1962 (the year his father retired) as vice president in charge of engineering. Five days before his scheduled retirement in April of 1980, he was asked to become president of P&F to oversee major rebuilding, thus delaying his retirement for five more years.

Even with a dedicated research staff, the company maintained a conservative policy. While slowly adding daily grind capacity, P&F was content to maintain a five-day work schedule, aim for stable earnings, pay reasonable dividends, and accumulate cash. Reluctant to risk the substantial investment needed to introduce new products to their grocery line, they continued to acquire other lines, such as New Orleans Coffee Co., W.H. Cargill Co., R.B. Davis Co., Six O'Clock Foods, and Illinois Foods Products Co. The company was doing well by the standards of the day with total tonnage sales increasing almost every year and consistent profits. They employed over 1,000 workers and had an annual payroll of $4 million.

The conservative growth of the company took on a different aspect in the '60s as stockholders demanded more of a showing on Wall Street. Outside management engineers studied the company and recommended that "Penick's interests appear to be best served by the merger route." In the meantime, however, the power structure of the company was shaken. In March of 1963, Joseph Jones and his wife, Eugenie Penick Jones, died in a fire in their home. In May, both Bill Penick and F.T. Bedford passed away. With the passing of these dominant stockholders, company stock prices gyrated from the rumors of acquisition or takeover.