History is a wonderful thing. I love the little guy innovators that shaped our world.
Clarence Birdseye developed his ideas about frozen food while living in Canada. He was living there because his father had destroyed the family business and he was broke.
He noticed that the fish caught by the natives basically “flash froze” when pulled from the water into the -40 atmosphere and tasted like fresh fish when he cooked them days later.
After a couple of years of experiments he had his temperatures down but needed cooling equipment. None existed so he designed and patented some. He designed and patented some of the first grocery store freezers. Store owners didn’t want to put out the cash for the freezers because they considered frozen food a “here today, gone tomorrow” gimmick. Birdseye was on the verge of losing his business.
Enter Marjorie Post, now owner and chairman of CW Post cereals. She bought Birdseye’s company, including the patents, for what people considered an outrageous amount of money and hired Birdseye to run that part of her soon to be empire.
Marjorie Post was an enigma during an age when women were expected to marry, have children and let the men handle business.
She learned business from her doting father who took her everywhere with him. Even company board meetings.
When Marjorie took over from her deceased father at age 27 she promptly told the Board “you work for me now” and meant it.
Whenever Marjorie Post heard about a new and innovative food process, item or idea she would visit the owner to make an assessment of the situation.
She eventually gathered all her acquisitions under the General Foods brand.
Very smart lady.
Very independent too. She married, I believe, four times. Something of a scandal in that day and age.
That was a very interesting story about her in that show. Did not know that she originally built Mar-A-Largo now the home of the best President in my lifetime.