Beatrice Foods Co. - Only Brown Type Available - Specimen Stock Certificate

Brown Specimen Stock printed by Columbian Bank Note Company. Beatrice Foods Company was a prominent American food processing enterprise established in 1894. Throughout its history, Beatrice acquired numerous well-known brands including Tropicana, Dannon, Krispy Kreme, Jolly Rancher, Orville Redenbacher's, Swiss Miss, Peter Pan, Martha White, Playtex, La Choy, Samsonite, and Avis Car Rental. In 1987, its international food operations were sold to Reginald Lewis, a corporate attorney, leading to the formation of TLC Beatrice International. Subsequently, the majority of its domestic (U.S.) brands and assets were purchased by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, with a significant portion of its holdings divested. By 1990, the remaining operations were ultimately acquired by ConAgra Foods.

The Beatrice Creamery Company was established in 1894 by George Everett Haskell and William W. Bosworth, who leased the factory of a bankrupt company of the same name located in Beatrice, Nebraska. Initially, they sourced butter, milk, and eggs from local farmers and graded these products for resale. They quickly began producing their own butter at their facility, packaging and distributing it under their own brand. They developed specialized protective packaging and delivered their products to grocery stores and restaurants using their own wagons and through jobbers. To address the cream shortage, the partners set up skimming stations where farmers could bring their milk to have the cream, used for butter production, separated. This initiative led to the introduction of a unique credit program that provided farmers with cream separators, allowing them to separate the cream on their farms while retaining the skim milk for animal feed. This program proved highly effective, resulting in the sale of over 50,000 separators in Nebraska between 1895 and 1905. On March 1, 1905, the company was incorporated as the Beatrice Creamery Company of Iowa, with a capital of $3,000,000.