Holsum Bread is an American brand of packaged sliced white bread

White bread

White bread is made from wheat flour from which the bran and the germ have been removed through a process known as milling. Milling gives white flour a longer shelf life by removing the bran which contains oil, allowing products made with it, like white bread, the ability to survive storage and...

. The Holsum name was being used by many retail bakeries, independently, around the country by the early 1900s. In 1908, the W. E. Long Company of Chicago acquired exclusive national rights to the name and formed a cooperative

Cooperative

A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit...

 of bakeries to market a single recipe under the brand name Holsum in various cities.
One of the largest and earliest of the Long Company member bakeries still in operation is the Phoenix Bakery, which was renamed the Holsum Bakery in 1929 after then owners Lloyd Eisele and Charles Becker purchased from the Long Company the rights to use the Holsum name for their bakery and its bread .

The Long Company was named after its founder William Edgar Long. In 1928, Long created and pioneered the concept of packaging sliced bread two years before the Wonder

Wonder Bread

Wonder Bread is the name of three North American brands of white bread: One produced by George Weston Bakeries in Canada, another by Hostess Brands in the United States, and the third by Grupo Bimbo in Mexico.- United States :...

 brand of packaged sliced bread appeared on store shelves. The Holsum brand name remains a registered trademark of the Long Company cooperative, which has expanded across the United States, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, and Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

. Member distributors include: the aforementioned Holsum Bakery, Inc.; Interstate Brands Corp.; Sara Lee Bakery Group; Pan-O-Gold Baking Co.; Gold Medal Bakery, Inc.; Holsum of Fort Wayne, Inc.; Derst Baking Co.; Flowers Industries, Inc.; Butter Krust Baking Co., Inc.; and Perfection Bakeries, Inc.

Flowers Foods

Flowers Foods

Flowers Foods, headquartered in Thomasville, Georgia, is a producer and marketer of packaged bakery foods in the United States. The company operates 39 bakeries that produce breads, buns, rolls, snack cakes, and pastries...

, one of the southern U.S. region distributors, bought the Phoenix-based Holsum Bakery in 2008.