Pepperidge Farm

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Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies (mint chocolate flavor)

Nantucket chocolate chip cookie

Pepperidge Farm is a commercial bakery in the U.S. founded in 1937 by Margaret Rudkin, who named the brand after her family's property in Fairfield, Connecticut, which in turn was named for the pepperidge tree, Nyssa sylvatica. Since 1961, the company has been owned by the Campbell Soup Company. It is based in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Its products include Milanos, and Nantucket cookies, Goldfish crackers, and varieties of bread. It distributes Tim Tams in the US, manufactured by another Campbell's subsidiary in Australia.

History

Margaret Rudkin began baking bread in 1937 for her youngest son Mark who had asthma and was allergic to most commercially processed foods. She home-baked bread that her allergic son could eat. Her son's doctor recommended it to his other patients and encouraged her to bake more bread. She approached the owner of a local grocery store to see if he would be willing to sell her "Pepperidge Farm" bread. After tasting a slice, he took all the loaves she had brought with her and placed an order for more. Margaret's husband Henry, a Wall Street broker, began taking loaves of bread with him to New York to be sold in specialty stores. She soon moved the growing business out of her kitchen and into her garage, then into a factory in 1940. Rationing during World War II forced her to cut back production due to ingredient shortage. In 1947 Margaret opened a modern commercial bakery in Norwalk, Connecticut.

On a trip to Europe in the 1950s, Rudkin discovered fancy chocolate cookies that she believed would be popular in the United States. She bought the rights to produce and sell them, and the Distinctive Cookies line was born. Under her management, Pepperidge Farm continued to expand into other products, including frozen pastry items and, later, the Goldfish snack cracker from Switzerland. In 1961 she sold the business to the Campbell Soup Company and became the first woman to serve on the board. She drew on her knowledge and experience to write The Margaret Rudkin Pepperidge Farm Cookbook in 1963, which was the first cookbook ever to make the New York Times bestseller list.

There was a long-running series of commercials promoting Pepperidge Farm that ran on television for three decades starring radio actor Parker Fennelly as the spokesman, playing the role of the often nostalgic philosopher, starting in the late 1950s and lasting through the late 1970s. Parker Fennelly died in 1988 at the age of 97. Several of the commercials he starred in played into the 1980s.

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The Margaret Rudkin Pepperidge Farm Cookbook, 1965

In popular culture

In an episode of The Golden Girls, Sophia complained about the high price of Pepperidge Farm cookies and said not to buy them with her money.

In the movie Big Daddy, Sonny compares his ex-girlfriend Vanessa's new older boyfriend to "the Pepperidge Farm guy," referring to Parker Fennelly.

In 2004, the music group Animal Collective sampled a 1985 Pepperidge Farm commercial featuring Parker Fennelly talking about blueberry muffins in the song "Muffins",[1] which they performed live occasionally. The most prominently heard line is "simple things make better muffins." In 2005 the song was released on the "Grass" single retitled as "Must Be Treeman" a variation of the first line the man says, "must be dreaming".

In an episode of Family Guy ("Saving Private Brian"), a Pepperidge Farm advertisement was parodied.

In an episode of Futurama (A Fishful of Dollars) Fry is seen watching a parody of an old Pepperidge Farm commercial.

In an episode of Friends (The One Where Eddie Won't Go), Chandler's new roommate Eddie accuses him of killing his fish, which is actually a goldfish cracker. When Eddie buys a new (live) fish and describes it as "feistier" than the previous one, Chandler points out that this is because "it was made by Pepperidge Farm".

External links

• Official site