Company history
Godfrey Keebler, of German descent, opened a bakery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1853. His bakery networked with several other local bakeries and others around the country over the years, and in 1927 they merged into the United Biscuit Company of America.[6]
United Biscuit operated regional bakeries which included not only Keebler, but also Hekman Biscuit Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan,[7][8] the Strietmann Biscuit Company of Mariemont, Ohio,[9] Merchants Biscuit Company of Denver,[10] and the Bowman Biscuit Company of Denver which used the Supreme brand name.[11][12] By 1963, United Biscuit introduced the Kitchen Rich brand nationally while still utilizing the regional brand names.[13] In 1966, United Biscuit decided to adopt a uniform brand name and chose Keebler as the national brand and the name of the company.[14]
Keebler did adopt Streitmann's Zesta saltine brand as Keebler's national brand of saltine crackers.[15] The Zesta brand name dates back to 1926, when it was chosen as the winning entry in a naming contest held by Strietmann. Joseph B. Rosenthal of Cincinnati received the grand prize of $100 for suggesting the name "Zesta", as a replacement for Strietmann's previous brand of soda crackers, "Prize".[16]
Keebler-Weyl Bakery became the official baker of Girl Scout Cookies in 1936, the first commercial company to bake the cookies (the scouts and their mothers had done it previously). By 1978, four companies were producing the cookies.[17] Little Brownie Bakers is the Keebler division still licensed to produce the cookies.[18]
In 1974, Keebler was acquired by United Biscuits,[19] a British multinational food manufacturer, headquartered in West Drayton, Middlesex, England.[20] By the 1980s, Keebler had expanded into the bagged salty snack market, launching a string of successful and innovative snack chips such as Tato Skins, O'Boisies, and Pizzarias. In 1995, United Biscuits announced plans to spin off the snack chip business,[21] but ended up selling the entire company to a partnership between Flowers Industries and Artal Luxembourg, a private equity firm.[22] Artal Luxembourg sold its holdings in Keebler in an IPO in 1998.[23]
The Keebler Company purchased Sunshine Biscuits in 1996.[24]
In 2000, the Keebler Company acquired a license to produce snacks based on the popular children's show Sesame Street.[25]
In March 2001, The Keebler Company was acquired by the Kellogg Company.[1] At that time, headquarters were located in Elmhurst, Illinois.[26]
On April 1, 2019, Kellogg announced that it was selling Keebler cookies and other related brands to Ferrero SpA for $1.3 billion. The acquisition is a part of Ferrero's strategy to buy brands which have been neglected within broader food companies' portfolios.[27] Kellogg retained the rights to other Keebler products, such as crackers, either under the Kellogg's or Sunshine names. The acquisition closed on July 29, 2019.[28][29]
