Baker's chocolate (brand)
Encyclopedia
Brand
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...
name for the line of baking chocolates made by the Kraft Foods
Kraft Foods
Kraft Foods Inc. is an American confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate. It markets many brands in more than 170 countries. 12 of its brands annually earn more than $1 billion worldwide: Cadbury, Jacobs, Kraft, LU, Maxwell House, Milka, Nabisco, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Trident, Tang...
corporation. Products include a variety of bulk chocolate
Chocolate
Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...
s, including white and unsweetened
Types of chocolate
Chocolate is a range of products derived from cocoa , mixed with fat and finely powdered sugar to produce a solid confection...
, and sweetened coconut
Coconut
The coconut palm, Cocos nucifera, is a member of the family Arecaceae . It is the only accepted species in the genus Cocos. The term coconut can refer to the entire coconut palm, the seed, or the fruit, which is not a botanical nut. The spelling cocoanut is an old-fashioned form of the word...
flakes. It is one of the largest national brands of chocolate in the United States.
History
In 1765, John Hannon (or alternatively spelled "Hannan" in some sources) and the American physician Dr. James Baker started importing beans and producing chocolate in the Lower MillsDorchester-Milton Lower Mills Industrial District
Dorchester-Milton Lower Mills Industrial District is an historic district on both sides of the Neponset River in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts and the Town of Milton, Massachusetts...
section of Dorchester, Massachusetts
Dorchester, Massachusetts
Dorchester is a dissolved municipality and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is named after the town of Dorchester in the English county of Dorset, from which Puritans emigrated and is today endearingly nicknamed "Dot" by its residents. Dorchester, including a large...
.
After Hannon's death, his widow sold the company to Dr. Baker in 1780, and the company was renamed to the Baker Chocolate Company
Walter Baker & Company
The Baker Chocolate Company is the oldest producer of chocolate in the United States. The company was initially established when a physician named Dr. James Baker met John Hannon on the banks of the Neponset River. Irishman John Hannon was penniless but was a skilled chocolatier, a craft which he...
. His first product was a cake of chocolate
Chocolate
Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...
for making a sweetened chocolate drink. Distribution was mainly in the Northeastern United States
Northeastern United States
The Northeastern United States is a region of the United States as defined by the United States Census Bureau.-Composition:The region comprises nine states: the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont; and the Mid-Atlantic states of New...
until 1804, when Dr. Baker's son, Edmund Baker, inherited the family business and increased production with a state-of-the-art mill.
By 1849, under Walter Baker, the Baker's Chocolate brand had spread to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
during the United States Gold Rush
Gold rush
A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers to an area that has had a dramatic discovery of gold. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and the United States, while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere.In the 19th and early...
. Production was limited to one kind of chocolate until 1852, when employee Samuel German created a new brand of "Sweet Chocolate" that had a higher sugar content than previous baking chocolates. This chocolate was given his name and called "German's Sweet Chocolate". A later mistake in a Dallas, Texas newspaper would give way to German chocolate cake
German chocolate cake
In US German chocolate cake, originally known as German's chocolate cake, is a layered chocolate cake filled and topped with a coconut-pecan frosting. It owes its name to American Sam German, who developed a brand of dark baking chocolate used for the cake. Sweet baking chocolate is traditionally...
, a recipe based on the chocolate.
Production steadily increased through the century. The trademark logo of La Belle Chocolatiere was adopted in 1883 by the fourth-generation familial owner, William Henry Pierce, step-nephew of Walter Baker. Pierce began advertising Baker's Chocolate heavily in newspapers to increase profits. Promotional offers of tableware and logo pins helped attract customers. At his death in 1896, the Forbes Syndicate bought the company. They eventually sold the company to the Postum Cereal Company
Post Cereals
Post Foods, LLC, also known as Post Cereals is a food company that was founded by C.W. Post in 1895 with the first Postum, a "cereal beverage," developed by Post in Battle Creek, Michigan. The first cereal, Grape-Nuts, was developed in 1897. Post has its headquarters in the Bank of America Plaza...
, later known as General Foods
General Foods
General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the USA by Charles William Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895. The name General Foods was adopted in 1929, after several corporate acquisitions...
. In 1969, production of Baker's Chocolate moved from Dorchester, Massachusetts to Dover, Delaware. The company was passed onto Kraft Foods
Kraft Foods
Kraft Foods Inc. is an American confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate. It markets many brands in more than 170 countries. 12 of its brands annually earn more than $1 billion worldwide: Cadbury, Jacobs, Kraft, LU, Maxwell House, Milka, Nabisco, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Trident, Tang...
in 1989 when they acquired General Foods.
Products
Baker's continues to expand their line of products, focusing on conveniences for the home baker. Some products, such as vanillaVanilla
Vanilla is a flavoring derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily from the Mexican species, Flat-leaved Vanilla . The word vanilla derives from the Spanish word "", little pod...
extract and cocoa powder, have been discontinued with company turnovers. Other products are available to food service professionals in bulk, considerably different kinds of coconut, cocoa drinks, and bulk chocolate.
Baker's most common products are:
- German's Sweet Chocolate 'Bar' (46% cacaoCocoa solidsCocoa solids are the low-fat component of chocolate. When sold as an end product, it may also be called cocoa powder, cocoa, and cacao....
) - Semi-sweet chocolate (54% cacao)
- Bittersweet chocolate (67% cacao)
- Unsweetened chocolate (100% cacao)
- White decorating chocolate (0% cacao)
- Premium white chocolate (0% cacao)
- Dipping chocolate (milk or semi-sweet)
- Semi-sweet chocolate chunks (54% cacao)
- Sweetened Angel Flake coconut
Additional reading
-
- Includes historic photos of Baker Chocolate facilities.
Sources
- Baker's Official Website (Kraft Foods)
- Boston Globe
- "Walter Baker Chocolate Company" - Dorchester Atheneum
- Cf. also: "Walter Baker & Co. General History" - Dorchester Atheneum
- Committee of the Dorchester Antiquarian and Historical Society, "History of the Town of Dorchester, Massachusetts", Boston : E. Clapp, Jr., 1859. Cf. p. 627.
- Stevens, Peter F., "It Happened in Dorchester: Dr. Baker and the Chocolate Factory", Dorchester Reporter, History of Dorchester.
- The Bostonian SocietyThe Bostonian SocietyThe Bostonian Society is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1881 for the purpose of preventing the Old State House from being "moved brick by brick" from Boston, Massachusetts to Chicago, Illinois...
, "Sweet History: Dorchester and the Chocolate Factory", in conjunction with Kraft Foods, the Dorchester Historical Society, and the Milton Historical Society.