Pet Incorporated

Product Details

Historical Context

The Pet Milk Company was the successor to the Helvetia Milk Condensing Company - which was organized in 1885 in Highland, Illinois, just across the river from St. Louis, Missouri. By mid-June, the first unsweetened "Highland Evaporated Cream" was produced and, despite a steam-powered sterilizer explosion three weeks later that resulted in a month-long shutdown, the business continued.

By 1918 the company had a total of ten production sites in the Midwest, Pennsylvania, and Colorado. As World War I ended, Helvetia closed plants due to oversupply, reluctantly pulling out of western markets. Latzer sold the excess milk to St. Louis businessmen, who turned to him in 1920 when a strike by the local milk producers association limited the brokers' supplies. The St. Louis strikers also convinced the Highland area farmers to strike, however, and Latzer was forced to close the plant.

By early 1921, Latzer's son John ran Helvetia from its reestablished headquarters in nearby St. Louis. In 1923, the company was renamed Pet Milk Company, after its best-selling evaporated milk brand. Within two years Pet Milk bought the Salt Lake City-based Sego Milk Products Company, giving Pet Milk more depth in milk supply, as well as a chance to reenter the western American market. In the late 1920s the company built new plants and made a number of acquisitions, including an ice cream plant in Greenville, Illinois, and a milk processing plant in Johnson City, Tennessee. In 1928 Pet Milk was first traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and the following year the Pet Dairy Products Company was established. By 1934 Pet Milk became the first company to add vitamin D to its dairy products via the process of irradiation.

By the early 1960s, the company began to heavily diversify. Within two years Pet Milk bought a variety of food producers, including the C. H. Musselman Company, Laura Scudder's, Downyflake Foods, Stephen F. Whitman & Son, Inc., and R. E. Funsten Company, the largest U.S. pecan producer at the time. These acquisitions brought Pet Milk a total of approximately $90 million in sales. Through its Canadian subsidiary, Pet Milk also acquired Van Kirk Chocolate, Cherry Hill Cheese, and the Numilk Division of Dominion Dairies. In 1963 the company bought the Dutch-based C. V. Gebroeders Pel, a producer of jelly and other confections.

In 1964 Pet Milk moved into the gourmet foods market, buying Reese Finer Foods, Inc., and D. E. Winebrenner Co., a fruit-juice maker. The following year, Pet Milk acquired George H. Dentler & Sons, a snack food company, and Stuckey's, Inc., the latter marking Pet Milk's first non-processing venture in the food industry. While Stuckey's pecan candy production fit with Pet Milk's earlier Funsten acquisition, Stuckey's also owned and operated 27 roadside stores.

Pet Milk created a new market with their 1962 introduction of Pet-Ritz frozen pie-crust shells. Another of Pet Milk's successful products at this time was Sego Liquid Diet Food, introduced in 1961. After competitors had opened up a market, Pet Milk brought in its own version, a thicker, high-protein drink available in a variety of flavors. By 1965 Sego brought in $22 million to the company's Milk Products Division sales. As Pet-Ritz frozen-pie products and Musselman applesauce met stiff competition, Pet Milk worked to carve its own position in the market by developing specialty items like quick-bake pies, no-bake pies, and chunky-spicy applesauce.

In 1966, in order to reflect its enlarged and diversified product line, Pet Milk changed its name to Pet Incorporated.

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