Pet, Inc.
Pet, Inc., was an American company that was the first to commercially produce evaporated milk as a shelf-stable consumer product with its "PET Milk" brand. While evaporated milk was popular before refrigerators were common in homes, sales peaked in the 1950s and it is now a niche product used in baking and as a cooking ingredient.
PET anticipated this change and starting in the 1950s became a multi-brand food products conglomerate through a series of acquisitions. This gave it ownership of consumer brands like Old El Paso Mexican foods, Progresso soups, Whitman's chocolates, Underwood canned meats, and others. Pet was a subsidiary of multi-industry conglomerate IC Industries between 1978 and 1991 when it once again became independent.
Pet ceased independent operations in 1995 when it was acquired by the Pillsbury Company with "PET" becoming a Pillsbury brand. When Pillsbury was acquired by General Mills in 2001, the PET brand was sold to International Multifoods to avoid antitrust concerns. Multifoods in turn was acquired by J.M. Smucker in 2004 who spun off its US sweetened condensed and evaporated milk operations, including PET, as Eagle Family Foods Group in 2014.
The "PET" trademark is owned by Eagle who still produce the PET Milk brand of evaporated milk. Eagle also licenses the PET trademark to the Dairy Farmers of America farmers cooperative who use the "PET Dairy" brand as a regional tradename for fresh and processed dairy products sold in the Southeastern United States.
History
Background
John Baptist Meyenberg was an operator at the Anglo-Swiss milk condensery at Cham, Switzerland. Anglo-Swiss made sweetened condensed milk. From 1866 through 1883, Meyenberg experimented with preservation of milk without the use of sugar. He discovered that condensed milk would last longer if heated to 120 °C in a sealed container, and hence could be preserved without adding sugar. When Anglo-Swiss declined to implement Meyenberg's work, he resigned from the company and emigrated to the United States. John Meyenberg first moved to St. Louis, but soon relocated to Highland, Illinois, due to its large Swiss population. On 25 November 1884, U.S. Patents 308,421 and 308,422 were issued to Meyenberg.Founding
Meyenberg associated with various local merchants in Highland, many of Swiss background, and starting in December 1884 had a series of meetings with John Wildi, Dr. John Knoebel, and Adolph Glock. On February 14, 1885, they founded the Helvetia Milk Condensing Company, named after the Latin word for Switzerland, with in funds collected from other local farmers and businessmen including Louis Latzer, George Roth, and Fred Kaeser. Knoebel was named president and Wildi secretary and treasurer. Roth, Latzer, and Kaeser took director roles with Meyenberg as superintendent of manufacturing.Production of Helvetia's first product, "Highland Evaporated Cream" unsweetened condensed milk, started on June 14, 1885, in an old, converted wool factory. They were soon processing 300 gallons of raw milk a day. But, on July 8, 1885, the steam-powered sterilizer exploded and the company ceased operations for a month for repairs.
Production restarted in August 1885 and by the end of the year, Helvetia's evaporated milk was beginning to gain recognition in the Southern US. Its reputation was boosted after it donated 10 cases to victims of a fire in Galveston, Texas, and a grocer in El Paso, Texas, ordered 100 cases after crediting it with helping to bring his sick infant back to health.
However, throughout its first year the company experienced a number of setbacks. The new equipment required frequent adjustment, the factory was short of water and the company had to drill a number of additional wells, and, most concerning, cases of its milk began spoiling on store shelves. Production was halted several times to deal with these issues and much of the blame was placed on Meyenberg. He was asked to take a reduced salary until the issues were resolved. Although he believed that the cause of the spoilage was inadequately sealed cans, others claimed that Meyenberg's sterilization process was to blame. Meyenberg refused to accept a reduced salary and left the company in August 1886. He went on to assist Elbridge Amos Stuart in producing Carnation Evaporated Milk in 1899.
At Helvetia, Latzer, who had resigned within a year of the company's founding, rejoined and assumed the role of technical director and president. Latzer had both a college degree and an education in chemistry and went to work to determine the cause of the spoilage. Assisted by Dr. Werner Schmidt, Wildi, and Knoebel, all of whom had studied chemistry, the company determined that the spoilage had been caused by bacteria and resolved the problem. During the investigation, Latzer made improvements to Helvetia's operations, automating its plant and improving production speed and safety in the process.
Successful production
By 1890, they had resolved the spoilage issue and Helvetia began growing nationally and internationally. Wildi led the company's marketing efforts and, after seeing the benefits from its actions after the Galveston fire, one major strategy was to send in free product following natural disasters. Particular focus regions for marketing were the Southern US where fresh milk spoiled quickly in the heat and mining regions in the Western US where it was scarce.The company exhibited its products at international events including the Paris Exposition of 1889 and the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. A major aspect of the company's marketing under Wildi in the 1890s was to promote it as an infant formula, particularly as a better alternative to sweetened condensed milk which had previously been one of the only alternatives to breastfeeding. Sales began to slow in the 1890s, however, with competing products entering the market. In response, Wildi convinced the company to launch the "Economy" brand which sold alongside their Highland brand.
The "Our Pet Evaporated Cream" brand was introduced when a New Orleans food broker asked Helvetia for a "baby-sized" can that could be sold for a nickel. Helvetia registered "Our PET" as a trademark in 1895 and by 1907 it had eclipsed the Highland and Economy brands to become the company's best seller.
Contested management
Just after the turn of the century, disputes between Latzer and Wildi on the direction of the company began to become more prominent. By 1906, they were two of only three stockholders in the company with the third being Kaeser. One aspect of the increased tensions was related to the number of family connections within the company. John Flournoy Montgomery, who had married Wildi's only child, Hedwig, in 1904, was hired as an advertising executive in 1905 or 1906. Latzer disliked Montgomery. After Kaeser's son, Albert, married Latzer's daughter, Mary Jane, in 1906, Latzer and Kaeser became a voting bloc, often opposing Wildi.At the 1907 annual meeting of the company, Wildi was forced out of daily operations and was no longer the secretary and treasurer. He still owned over 33% of the company's stock and so was still a member of its board but in 1907 the board passed new laws which forbade board members from working in the milk condensing industry.
Despite the new rules, Wildi and Montgomery organized the "John Wildi Evaporated Milk Company" six months after Wildi was forced out. The new company was headquartered in Highland with a factory in Marysville, Ohio. The Helvetia board was outraged at this move but Wildi had enough votes to remain on the board, though he was denied access to meetings. The Wildi family successfully sued the company and, in November 1911, the court ruled that the 1907 change in rules was invalid.
However, Wildi died on February 5, 1910, over a year before the court case was ruled on. He left his stock in Helvetia to his wife Louisa and his stock in the John Wildi Evaporated Milk Company to his daughter. Since the Helvetia stock was no longer owned by someone who held stock in a competing company, the 1907 rule change no longer had any impact on the Wildi family. After John's death, his family attorney, William Nardin, joined Helvetia's board. Louisa Wildi eventually sold her stock in the company in 1923 for. The John Wildi company, under Montgomery's management after Wildi's death, merged with Nestlé during World War I.
Government contracts
Since it was easy to transport and did not spoil, "Our PET" was widely used by the US military, including Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders, during the Spanish–American War and World War I. American troops referred to a Helvetia milk can as a "Tin Cow". To fulfill these large government orders, Helvetia built a second plant in Greenville, Illinois and bought and converted a limburger cheese factory in New Glarus, Wisconsin to milk production in 1910. By 1918, it was operating 10 production facilities across the US Midwest, Pennsylvania, and Colorado. Many of these were closed after World War I as government orders tapered off and as a result the company was no longer able to supply buyers in the Western US. In 1919, Pet formed a joint venture with Carnation, General Milk Co., for the purpose of expanding internationally. Pet's share of the venture cost.The company's Highland plant was closed temporarily in 1920 when local farmers went on strike. During a strike in St. Louis, Latzer had sold Helvetia's excess supplies to businessmen in the city when the St. Louis area milk producers association went on strike. Learning of this, the strikers in St. Louis convinced Highland area producers to strike as well.
PET Milk Company
Helvetia moved its headquarters to St. Louis in 1921 and Louis Latzer's son, John Latzer, took over leadership of the company though the former remained involved with the company. Two years later, Helvetia renamed itself the PET Milk Company after its signature product.In 1925, Pet bought the Sego Milk Products Company of Salt Lake City which restored the company's access to the Western US markets lost after its post-World War I draw-down. The Sego purchase was followed by the acquisition of a Greenville, Illinois ice cream plant and a Johnson City, Tennessee fluid milk processing plant all in the late 1920s.
Following its significant expansion during the 1920s, Pet Milk began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 1928. The next year, it established a subsidiary, "Pet Dairy Products Company", to start selling fluid milk produced at its newly-acquired Johnson City plant.
After Louis Latzer died in 1924, John Latzer put Nardin in charge of sales and marketing. Nardin convinced his friend, copywriter Erma Proetz, to take over the Pet account at its advertising agency, Gardner Advertising Company. Proetz began a successful campaign promoting Pet Milk in Ladies' Home Journal in May 1927 followed by creating the "Pet Milk test kitchen" developing recipes and extensive marketing around the concept.
Most notable of her marketing efforts was Proetz's development of a pseudonym, "Mary Lee Taylor", who was said to be a "nutritionist and home economist" for Pet Milk. Under this character, Proetz began making bi-weekly radio broadcasts in 1933 offering recipes and cooking tips which incorporated Pet Milk. The show was called "The Mary Lee Taylor Show" and broadcast from the PET Milk test kitchen. By 1943, these segments had been extended to a half hour airing on CBS Radio on Saturdays with the first half being a soap opera called "The Story of the Week" featuring a young married couple, Jim and Sally Carter. The second half would be "Mary Lee Taylor" discussing her recipes and cooking tips while promoting Pet Milk products. In the 1940s, Pet began offering free recipe books by mail for listeners of the show. At its height, the show was aired on 200 radio stations. It continued after Proetz's 1944 death with other actors playing the titular role. The show moved to NBC in 1948 and aired until 1954.
Pet became the first company to add vitamin D to its dairy products via irradiation in 1943 but sales of PET Evaporated Milk peaked in 1950 leading the company to look to diversification. It began expanding its products with a mix of acquisitions and product development. It introduced first of its kind nonfat dry milk made with an improved process. John Latzer died in 1952 succeeded in leadership by his brother Robert Latzer.