Company Profile

Welcome to the Beatrice Archives, where you will find rare documents from different eras of the company.  You can choose from annual reports, company prospectus, owners manuals, advertisements, recipe guides, among other hard to find documents.  Originally founded as Haskell and Bosworth in 1894 by George Everett Haskell and William W. Bosworth, and primarily engaged in the sale of poultry, eggs, produce and butter.  Haskell and Bosworth later incorporated in Lincoln, Nebraska as The Beatrice Creamery Company in 1898.  The company change its name to Beatrice Foods Company in 1946 to reflect the change from primarily dairy foods to grocery products.

From 1898 to about 1983, not many knew who or what Beatrice was, but many of the well known brands that Beatrice had acquired over the decades, people were using without really knowing that Beatrice owned them.  For example, in 1901 Beatrice Creamery Company patented the name Meadow Gold as the trade name for its dairy line in the markets that Beatrice had dairy operations.  Beatrice continued to remain in the dairy business until it saw an opportunity to venture into other areas.  LaChoy Chinese foods was purchased by Beatrice in 1943 which was to become the companies first venture into other foods products.  Other notable products and companies that were to become part of Beatrice are listed on the Beatrice Products Page.  It wasn’t until 1983 that then Beatrice Companies, Inc. CEO James L. Dutt decided that Beatrice needed a unified identity hired Lipson Alport Glass & Associates to design a completely new identity for the new Beatrice.  Beatrice Foods Company, which changed its corporate charter to become Beatrice Companies, Inc. in 1984, to reflect the general purpose of Beatrice of being more than just a food company.  Beatrice was instantly recognized when during the Olympics in 1984 the company debuted the Beatrice commercials that, at the end of each commercial there was a soft female voice that said; “We’re Beatrice”.

But this is not what made Beatrice a success in the business world, but rather the decades old company practice of decentralized management, which was the envy of other companies.  At the 87th annual meeting of Beatrice stockholders on June 5th, 1984, stockholders of record were asked to change the name of the company. “Recognizing this clear departure from the past, we are proposing a new name for the company. At our annual meeting in June, stockholders will be asked to change the name to Beatrice Companies, Inc. from Beatrice Foods Co. This change is appropriate given the company’s evolution and present composition. It reflects Beatrice’s wide range of separate and distinct businesses, many with operations totally unrelated to food processing, yet retains the company’s goodwill and reputation for quality products and services.” Annual Report, February 29, 1984.

In June 1984, Beatrice acquired Esmark, Inc. Esmark.  The Esmark acquisition was part of the company’s strategy to focus Beatrice’s assets in food and consumer products businesses.  Because of Esmark’s national brands, direct sales force, distribution network and research and development capabilities, its acquisition was expected to accelerate the attainment of Beatrice’s marketing goals. Many analysts believe this acquisition, which was pushed by then Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President James L. Dutt, put too much of a debt load on Beatrice, which hurt Beatrice’s credit rating and therefore deflated the value of Beatrice stock valuation.

1985, Beatrice sold their Beatrice Chemical division to Imperial Chemical Industries. Stahl Finish, Paule Chemical, Polyvinyl Chemical Industries, Converters Ink Company, Thoro System Products were the business units that formed Beatrice Chemical.

In 1986, Beatrice became the target of leveraged buyout specialists Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. They ultimately took over the firm for $8.7 billion — at the time the largest leveraged buyout in history, and over the next four years sold it off, division by division.

In December 1986, a group of Company executives, together with Drexel Burnham Lambert bought International Playtex, Inc. in a leveraged buyout and named the newly private organization Playtex Holdings. Playtex included such brands as Max Factor, Playtex Living Gloves, Playtex Products, Almay, Jhirmack, Danskin, and Halston/Orlane.

When KKR came on board, they sold the Beatrice Dairy Products, Inc. subsidiary, which included the brands of Meadow Gold, Hotel Bar Butter, Keller’s Butter Mountain High Yogurt, and Viva Milk Products, to Borden, Inc. in December 1986 for $315,000,000 million.

In 1986, investment firm Wesray Capital Corporation, acquires Avis Rent a Car System for $263 million plus the assumption of debt.

In 1986, Beatrice’s Coca-Cola bottling operations were acquired by Coca-Cola Enterprises, Inc. for $1 billion.

Beatrice Bottled Water Division, with brands such as Arrowhead Drinking Water, Ozarka Drinking Water, and Great Bear Drinking Water were also sold to Perrier in 1987.

Brands like Samsonite, Culligan, Stiffel Lamps, del mar window coverings, Louver Drape window coverings, Aristokraft kitchen cabinets, Day-Timers, Waterloo Industries tool boxes, Aunt Nellies and Martha White were merged into a new entity called E-II Holdings, which was later purchased by American Brands for 1.14 billion. E-II was created in June, 1987, as an umbrella company for several non-food businesses of Beatrice.

Tropicana Products, Inc. was sold to Seagram for $1.2 billion in 1988.

All of the international operations were folded into a new entity called Beatrice International Holdings in 1987, which was later purchased that year through junk bond financing for $985 million by Reginald Lewis, a corporate attorney, creating TLC Beatrice International.  TLC Beatrice International became the largest business in America run by an African American and the first company to reach a billion dollars in sales, with a black man at its head. TLC Beatrice sold the Canadian operations; Beatrice Foods Canada, Ltd., in 1990 to Onyx and then Beatrice Foods, Inc. later ended up in the hands of Parmalat in 1997.

In 1987, KKR had formed a new entity, with similar intent as E-II Holdings, called Beatrice Company, which was specifically created to include Beatrice Cheese, Inc., Beatrice-Hunt/Wesson, Inc., and Swift-Eckrich, Inc., which were the last remaining food business units of the Beatrice U.S. Food Corp. operations.  In 1990, KKR sold Beatrice Company to CAGSUB, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of ConAgra, Inc.  Most of Beatrice’s brand names still exist, but under various other owners, as trademarks and product lines were sold separately to the highest bidder.

The original Beatrice Companies, Inc. (Beatrice Foods Co. before 1984, and Beatrice Creamery Company before 1946); went dormant in the late 1980’s, but was revived in 2007.  The Beatrice of today goes by its 1984 name of Beatrice Companies, Inc., which was approved by the 1984 stockholder meeting.  You can see Beatrice Companies, Inc. https://www.beatriceco.com/ and see what they now do as a company.

Here are some interesting facts about Beatrice Foods that are not widely known, and are almost unheard of in today’s corporate world:

• When Beatrice would purchase businesses internationally, the company made a policy of allowing the local management of that company to retain 30% ownership.  This would allow for incentive for local management to help grow the business, since they know the local tastes and needs of the consumer of their region.
• In the 1970’s, Beatrice was well known for how well it took care of the businesses that it operated and the fact that the company allowed each division to have a fair amount of autonomy without much corporate control.  This fact did not escape Culligan Water, whose management was concerned that their company would be taken over by hostile bidders and sought an alternative.  Culligan management actually approached Beatrice management about the possibility of taking Culligan over, knowing that Culligan would be allowed to operate without any harm to the business and with the original management team still in place after the acquisition.