VLASIC, JOE

Food Pickle Empire

The industrial center of Los Angeles is named, aptly enough, City of Industry, California. Were it not for the palm trees and the age of its modern buildings, it looks very much like any other industrial center in America. It is the home of every conceivable type of manufacturing and distribution from pickles to torque wrenches. The Croatian mark can be found on virtually every type of manufactured goods and in nearly every service in California industry. The world’s largest pickle processor is Vlasic Foods which sells more of the product than its next three competitors combined. Vlasic Foods can hardly be called a solely California enterprise, for it has plants in Michigan, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Delaware and City of Industry, California. But there is no question that it is a Croatian enterprise. The founder of the company, Joe Vlasic, arrived in the United States as a boy in 1914. His father was a cheese maker and Joe followed in his footsteps, at first working in the family business and eventually purchasing his own milk and cream route. As his distributorship grew, he began to market margarine under his own label, Vlasco. The line expanded to a number of dairy products and relishes and by 1935 Joe Vlasic had his own building in Detroit. In 1942 he purchased the first order of twenty-five cases of pickles. During the post-war period Vlasic acquired one company after another controlling mid-western distribution of a wide range of food products. In 1959 a separate company was formed solely for the production of pickles. Under the direction of Robert Vlasic, a 1949 graduate of the University of Michigan, the company reversed years of diversification for consolidation. at the peak of its market and profit scale, the Vlasic Dairy Company was sold to Borden in 1963. Two years later Vlasic Foods Distribution company was sold to Continental Coffee. by 1970 Vlasic Foods was “the pickle company”, dealing in over one hundred varieties of pickles and peppers. As the multi million dollar empire spread nation-wide. Vlasic Foods acquired Early California Foods of Los Angeles in 1976. The City of Industry plant now employs over two hundred regular employees and nearly double that number at peak packing times.