In the West, the development of a singular, connected, food industry was dependent on factors that would eventually allow mass cuisine. Methods of preserving, transporting, marketing, and more importantly automating food production were the foundations of the global food market. Most people are familiar with the two industrialists of the western chocolate industry, Milton Hershey and Frank Mars, the founders of The Hershey Company and Mars, Inc., respectively. Together they applied these same concepts to chocolate production, effectively contributing to the goal of a connected food industry.
Large-scale production was heavily impacted by the efficiency of the producer in the early 1800’s. Automation was implemented into factories to boost productivity and was exemplified in the early sardine-canning industry. Before tools and machines to assist workers were introduced to the canning industry, it was believed that “A skilled man can fill only 50 or 60 cans a day”, After the assistance of machined canning in the 1900s it was now thought that “two men with assistants could produce 1500 cans a day”[1]. This type of innovation was also used by the chocolate industrialist Milton Hershey. A renowned chocolate industrialist, Hershey had just developed a revolutionary milk-chocolate formula and had his eyes set on mass-producing it in 1903. After the success of his recipe, “work at the homestead focused on refining the process and adapting it for large-scale production”[2]. It was clear that having an organized and working production facility was a crucial component of the success of Hershey’s businesses.
Another well-known chocolate industrialist, Frank Mars, also knew that to create a network of mass chocolate production his factories and their efficiency had to be a priority. After moving his early business to a factory in Chicago, he began his mass production of chocolate. On the “inside, everything was cutting edge. Designed by the engineering department of the Austin company- which built all of the automobile plants for ford- the plant was sleek, modern, efficient and as automated as possible”[3].
The early beginnings of the mass food industry that we now take for granted were not spontaneous. The industrialists of this development understood what needed to be implemented to achieve a standardized food industry. Hershey and Mars were just some of the people who started this movement in the chocolate industry, which has now evolved into an interconnected system of food production, preserving, transporting, and marketing capable of feeding the western world.
[1] Goody, Jack, “Industrial Food-Towards the Development of a World Cuisine”, Published 1982, p.159
[2] D’antino, Michael D., “Hershey-Milton S. Hershey’s Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams”, Published 2006, p.108
[3] Brenner, Joel, “The Emperors of Chocolate”, Published 2000, p.57
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